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Copyright, 1861, 

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TICKNOR & FIELDS. 


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CONTENTS 


OMAf m 

I. Auri Sacra Fames . . 5 

II. Gerrian’s Ranch ... 18 

HI. Don Fulano . 23 

IV. John Brent ... .36 

Y. Across Country . 49 

VI. Jake Shamberlain . .59 

YU. Enter, the Brutes! 67 

VHL A Mormon Caravan .... 79 


IX. SlZZUM AND HIS HERETICS . . . . TW 

X. “Ellen! Ellen!” ..... 101 


XI. Father and Daughter . . . 113 

XU. A Ghoul at the Feast . . . 125 

XIII. Jake Shamberl ain’s Ball . 186 

XIV. Hugh Clitheroe .... 146 

XV. A Lover 166 

XVI. Armstrong ..... 181 

XVH. Caitiff baffles Ogre .... 198 


CONTENTS. 


Iv 

Xyin. A Gallop of Three . *04 \ 

XIX. Faster ........ 507 

XX. A Horse . 218^ 

i 

XXI. Luggernel Springs . . . 228 

XXn. Champagne 238 

XXIII. An Idyl of the Bockys . 247 


XXIV. Drapetomania .... 254 

XXV. Noblesse Oblige .... 264 

XXVI! Ham 274 


XXVII. Fulano’s Blood-Stain ... 284 

XXVHI. Short’s Cut-off . . • 294 

XXIX. A Lost Trail 801 

XXX London 318 

XXXI. A Dwarf 821 

XXXH. Padiham’s Shop 885 

XXXin. “ Cast thy Bread upon the Waters w 848 
XXXIV. The Last of a Love-Chase . 864 


JOHN BRENT 


CHAPTER I. 

AXJKI SACRA FAMES. 

I write in the first person; but I shall not 
maunder about myself. I am in no sense the 
hero of this drama. Call me Chorus, if you 
please, — not Chorus merely observant and im- 
passive ; rather Chorus a sympathizing monitor 
and helper. Perhaps I gave a certain crude 
momentum to the movement of the play, when 
finer forces were ready to flag ; but others bore 
the keen pangs, others took the great prizes, 
while I stood by to lift the maimed and cheer 
the victor. 

It is a healthy, simple, broad-daylight story. 
No mystery in it. There is action enough, pri- 
meval action of the Homeric kind. Deeds of 
the heroic and chivalric times do not utterly dis- 
dain our day. There are men as ready to gallop 
for love and strike for love now, as in the age of 
Amadis. 


6 


JOHN BRENT. 


Roughs and brutes, as well as gentlemen, tai<j 
their places in this drama. None of the charac- 
ters have scruples or qualms. They act accord- 
ing to their laws, and are scourged or crowned, 
&s their laws suit Nature’s or not. 

To me these adventures were episode ; to my 
friend, the hero, the very substance of life. 

But enough backing and filling. Enter Rich- 
ard Wade — myself — as Chorus. 

A few years ago I was working a gold-quartz 
mine in California. 

It was a worthless mine, under the conditions 
of that time. I had been dragged into it by the 
shifts and needs of California life. Destiny prob- 
ably meant to teach me patience and self-posses- 
sion in difficulty. So Destiny thrust me into a 
bitter bad business of quartz mining. 

If I had had countless dollars of capital to 
work my mine, or quicksilver for amalgamation 
as near and plenty as the snow on the Sierra 
Nevada, I might have done well enough. 

As it was, I got but certain pennyworths of 
gold to a most intolerable quantity of quartz. 
The precious metal was to the brute mineral in 
the proportion of perhaps a hundred pin-heads to 
the ton. My partners, down in San Francisco, 
wrote to me : “ Only find twice as many pin- 
heads, and our fortune is made.” So thought 


AURI SACRA FAMES. 


T 


those ardent fellows, fancying that gold would go 
up and labor go down, — that presently I would 
strike a vein where the mineral would show yel- 
low threads and yellow dots, perhaps even yellow 
knobs, in the crevices, instead of empty crannies 
which Nature had prepared for monetary deposits 
and forgotten to fill. 

So thought the fellows in San Francisco. They 
had been speculating in beef, bread-stuffs, city 
lots, Rincon Point, wharf property, mission lands, 
Mexican titles, Sacramento boats, politics, Ore- 
gon lumber. They had been burnt out, they had 
been cleaned out, they had been drowned out. 
They depended upon me and the quartz mine to 
set them up again. So there was a small, steady 
stream of ‘money flowing up from San Francisco 
from the depleted coffers of those sanguine part- 
ners, flowing into our mine, and sinking there, 
together with my labor and my life. 

Our ore — the San Francisco partners liked to 
keep up the complimentary fiction of calling it 
ore — was pretty stuff for an am?ieur mineralogi- 
cal cabinet. A professor would have exhibited 
specimens to a lecture-room with delight. There 
never was any quartz where the matrix was better 
defined, better shaped to hold the gold that was 
not in it. For Macadam, what royal material it 
would have been ! Park roads made of it would 
have glittered gayer than marble. How brilliant 


8 


JOHN BBENT. 


ly paths covered with its creamy-white fragments 
would have meandered through green grass ! 

If I had had no fond expectations of these 
shining white and yellow stones, I should have 
deemed their mass useful and ornamental enough, 
— useful skeleton material to help hold the world 
together, ornamental when it lay in the sun and 
sparkled. But this laughing sparkle had some- 
thing of a sneer in it. The stuff knew that it 
had humbugged me. Let a man or a woman be 
victor over man or woman, and the chances are 
that generosity will suppress the paean. But mat- 
ter is so often insulted and disdained, that when 
it triumphs over mind it is merciless. 

Yes; my quartz had humbugged me. Or 
rather — let me not be unjust even to undefend- 
ed stone, not rich enough to pay an advocate — 
I had humbugged myself with false hopes. I 
have since ascertained that my experience is 
not singular. Other men have had false hopes 
of other things than quartz mines. Perhaps it 
was to teach me this that the experience came. 
Having had my lesson, I am properly cool and 
patient now when I see other people suffering 
in the same way, — whether they dig for gold, 
fame, or bliss; digging for the bread of their 
life, and getting only a stone. The quartz was 
honest enough as quartz. It was my own fault 
that I looked for gold-bearing quartz, and so 


AURI SACRA FAMES- 


9 


four. a it bogus and a delusion. What right 
ha^e we to demand the noble from the ignoble ! 

I used sometimes fairly to shake my fist at 
my handsome pile of mineral, my bullionless 
pockets of ore. There was gold in the quartz ; 
there are pearls in the Jersey muds; there are 
plums in boarding-house puddings ; there are 
sixpences in the straw of Broadway omnibuses. 

Steady disappointment, by and by, informs a 
man that he is in the wrong place. All work, 
no play, no pay, is a hint to work elsewhere. 
But men must dig in the wrong spots to learn 
where these are, and so narrow into the right 
spot at last. Every man, it seems, must waste 
so much life. Every man must have so much 
imprisonment to teach him limits and fit him 
for freedom. 

Nearly enough, however of Mxei Prigioni . A 
word or two of my companions in jail. A 
hard lot they were, my neighbors within twenty 
miles! Jail-birds, some of them, of the worst 
kind. It was as well, perhaps, that my digging 
did not make money, and theirs did. They 
would not have scrupled to bag my gold and 
butcher me. But they were not all ruffians; 
some were only barbarians. 

Pikes, most of these latter. America is man- 
ufacturing sevei al new types of men. The 
Pike is one of the newest. He is a bastard 
i* 


10 


JOHN BRENT. 


pioneer. With one hand he clutches the pio 
neer vices; with the other he beckons forward 
the vices of civilization. It is hard to under- 
stand how a man can have so little virtue in 
so long a body, unless the shakes are foes to 
virtue in the soul, as they are to beauty in the 
face. 

He is a terrible shock, this unlucky Pike, to 
the hope that the new race on the new continent 
is to be a handsome race. I lose that faith, which 
the people about me now have nourished, when 1 
recall the Pike. He is hung together, not put 
together. He inserts his lank fathom of a man 
into a suit of molasses-colored homespun. Frowzy 
and husky is the hair Nature crowns him with ; 
frowzy and stubby the beard. He shambles in 
his walk. He drawls in his talk. He drinks 
whiskey by the tank. His oaths are to his words 
as Falstaff’s sack to his bread. I have seen Mal- 
tese beggars, Arab camel-drivers, Dominican fri- 
ars, New York Aldermen, Digger Indians; the 
foulest, frowziest creatures I have ever seen are 
thorough-bred Pikes. The most vigorous of 
them leave their native landscape of cotton-wood 
and sand-bars along the yellow ditches of the 
West, and emigrate with a wagon-load of pork 
and pork-fed progeny across the plains to Cali- 
fornia. There the miasms are roasted out of 
them ; the shakes warmed away ; they will grow 


AUEI SACRA FAMES 


11 


rich, and possibly mellow, in the third or fourth 
generation. They had not done so in my time, 
I lived among them ad nauseam , month after 
month, and I take this opportunity to pay them 
parting compliments. 

I went on toiling, day after day, week after 
week, two good years of my life, over that miser- 
able mine. Nothing came of it. I was growing 
poorer with every ton we dug, poorer with every 
pound we crushed. In a few months more, I 
should have spent my last dollar and have gone 
to day labor, perhaps among the Pikes. The 
turnpike stuff refused to change into gold. I 
saw, of course, that something must be done. 
What, I did not know. I was in that state 
when one needs an influence without himself to 
take him by the hand gently, by the shoulder 
forcibly, by the hair roughly, or even by the nose 
insultingly, and drag him off into a new region. 

The influence came. Bad news reached me. 
My only sister, a widow, my only near relative, 
died, leaving two young children to my care. It 
was strange how this sorrow made the annoyance 
and weariness of my life naught ! How this re- 
sponsibility cheered me ! My life seemed no 
longer lonely and purposeless. Point was given 
to all my intentions at once. I must return 
home to New York. Further plans when I am 
there ! But now for home ! If any one wanted 


12 


JOHN BRENT. 


my quartz mine, he might have it. I could not 
pack it in my saddle-bags to present to a college 
cabinet of mineralogy. 

I determined, as time did not absolutely press, 
to ride home across the plains. It is a grand 
journey. Two thousand miles, or so, on horse- 
back. Mountains, deserts, prairtes, rivers, Mor- 
mons, Indians, buffalo, — adventures without 
number in prospect. A hearty campaign, and 
no carpet knighthood about it. 

It was late August. I began my preparation! 
at once. 


CHAPTER II. 


GEBBIAN’S BANCH. 

It happened that, on a journey, early in tne 
same summer, some twenty miles from my mine, 
I had come upon a band of horses feeding on the 
prairie. They cantered off as I went riding 
down the yellow slope, and then, halting just out 
of lasso reach, stopped to reconnoitre me. Ani- 
mals are always eager to observe man. Perhaps 
they want ideas against the time of their promo- 
tion to humanity, so that they need not be awk- 
ward, and introduce quadruped habits into biped 
circles. 

The mass of the herd inspected me stupidly 
enough. Man to them was power, and nothing 
else, — a lasso-throwing machine, — something that 
put cruel bits into equine mouths, got on equine 
backs, and forced equine legs to gallop until they 
were stiff. Man was therefore something to ad- 
mire, but to avoid, — so these horses seemed to 
think; and if they had known man as brother 
man alone knows him, perhaps their opinion 
would have been confirmed. 


14 


JOHN BBENY 


One horse, however, among them, had more 
courage, or more curiosity, or more faith. He 
withdrew from the gregarious commonalty, — the 
haughty aristocrat ! — and approached me, cir- 
cling about, as if he felt a certain centripetal 
influence, — as if he knew himself a higher be- 
ing than his mustang comrades, — nearer to man, 
and willing to offer him his friendship. He and 
I divided the attention of the herd. He seemed 
to be, not their leader, but rather one who dis- 
dained leadership. Facile princeps ! He was 
too far above the noblest of the herd to care for 
their unexciting society. 

I slipped quietly down from my little Mexican 
caballo, and, tethering him to a bush with the 
lariat, stood watching the splendid motions of this 
free steed of the prairie. 

He was an American horse, — so they distin- 
guish in California one brought from the old 
States, — a superb young stallion, perfectly 
black, without mark. It was magnificent to 
see him, as he circled about me, fire in his eye, 
pride in his nostril, tail flying like a banner 
power and grace from tip to tip. No one would 
ever mount him, or ride him, unless it was his 
royal pleasure. He was conscious of his repre- 
sentative position, and showed his paces hand- 
somely. It is the business of all beautiful things 
to exhibit 


GEE RIAN’S RANCH. 


15 


Imagine tbe scene. A little hollow in the 
prairie, forming a perfect amphitheatre ; the yel- 
low grass and wild oats grazed short ; a herd of 
horses staring from the slope, myself standing in 
the middle, like the ring-master in a circus, and 
this wonderful horse performing at his own free 
will. He trotted powerfully, he galloped grace- 
fully, he thundered at full speed, ho lifted his 
fore-legs to welcome, he flung out his hind-legs 
to repel, he leaped as if he were springing over 
bayonets, he pranced and curvetted as if he were 
the pretty plaything of a girl ; finally, when he 
had amused himself and delighted me sufficiently, 
he trotted up and snuffed about me, just out of 
reach. 

A horse knows a friend by instinct. So does 
a man. But a man, vain creature! is willing 
to repel instinct and trust intellect, and so suf- 
fers from the attempt to revise his first impres- 
sions, which, if he is healthy, are infallible. 

The black, instinctively knowing me for a 
friend, came forward and made the best speech 
be could of welcome, — a neigh and no more. 
Then, feeling a disappointment that his compli- 
ment could not be more melodiously or grace- 
fully turned, he approached nearer, and, not 
without shying and starts, of which I took no 
notice, at last licked my hand, put his head 
upon my shoulder, suffered mo to put my arm 


16 


JOHN BRENT. 


round his neck, and in fact lavished upon me 
every mark of confidence. We were growing 
*ast friends, when I heard a sound of coming 
hoofs. The black tore away with a snort, and 
galloped off with the herd after him. A Mexi- 
can vaquero dashed down the slope in pursuit. 
I hailed him. 

“ A quien es ese caballo — el negrito ? ” 

“ Aquel diablo ! es del Senor Gerrian.” And 
he sped on. 

I knew Gerrian. He was a Pike of the bet* 
ter class. He had found his way early to Cali- 
fornia, bought a mission farm, and established 
himself as a ranchero. His herds, droves, and 
flocks darkened the hills. The name reminded 
me of the giant Geryon of old. Were I an 
unscrupulous Hercules, free to pillage and name 
it protection, I would certainly drive off Gerri- 
an’s herds for the sake of that black horse. So 
I thought, as I watched them gallop away. 

It chanced that, when I was making my ar- 
rangements to start for home, business took me 
within a mile of Gerrian’s ranch. I remem- 
bered my interview with the black. It occurred 
to me that I would ride down and ask the ran- 
chero to sell me his horse for my journey. 

I found Gerrian, a lank, wire-drawn man, 
burnt almost Mexican color, lounging in the 
shade of his adobe house. I told him my busi 
ness in a word. 


GERMAN'S RANCH. 


IT 


No bueno, stranger ! ” said he. 

“ Why not ? Do you want to keep the horse.” 

“ No, not partickler. Thar ain’t a better stal- 
lion nor him this side the South Pass ; but I can’t 
do nothing with him no more ’n yer can with a 
steamboat when the cap’n says, ‘ Beat or bust ! ’ 
Ho ’s a black devil, ef thar ever was a devil into 
a horse’s hide. Somebody ’s tried to break him 
down when he was a colt, an now he wont stan’ 
nobody goan near him.” 

“ Sell him to me, and I ’ll try him with kind- 
ness.” 

“ No, stranger. I ’ve tuk a middlin’ shine to 
you from the way you got off that Chinaman 
them Pikes was goan to hang fur stealing the 
mule what he had n’t stoled. I ’ve tuk a middlin’ 
kind er shine to you, and I don’t want to see 
yer neck broke, long er me. That thar black ’ll 
shut up the hinge in yer neck so tight that 
yer ’ll never look up to ther top of a red-wood 
Again. Allowin’ you haint got an old ox-yoke 
Into yer fur backbone, yer ’ll keep off that thar 
black kettrypid, till the Injins tie yer on, and 
motion yer to let him slide or be shot.” 

“ My backbone is pretty stiff,” said I ; “ I 
will risk my neck.” 

“ The Greasers is some on hosses, you ’ll give 
in, I reckon. Well, thar ain’t a Greaser on my 
ranch that ’ll put leg over that thar streak er 


18 


JOHN BRENT. 


four-legged lightning; no, not if yer ’d chain 
off for him a claim six squar leagues in the raal 
old Garden of Paradise, an stock it with ther best 
gang er bullocks this side er Santer Fee.” 

“ But I ’m not a Mexican ; I ’m the stiffest kind 
of Yankee. I don’t give in to horse or man. 
Besides, if he throws me and breaks my neck 
I get my claim in Paradise at once.” 

“ Well, stranger, you ’ve drawed yer bead on 
that thar black, as anybody can see. An ef a 
man ’s drawed his bead, thar ain’t no use tellin’ 
him to pint off.” 

“ No. If you ’ll sell, I ’ll buy.” 

“ Well, if you wunt go fur to ask me to throw 
in a coffin to boot, praps we ken scare up a 
trade. How much do you own in the Foolonner 
Mine?” 

I have forgotten to speak of my mine by its 
title. A certain Pike named Pegrum, Colonel 
Pegrum, a pompous Pike from Pike County, 
Missouri, had once owned the mine. The Span- 
iards, finding the syllables Pegrum a harsh mor- 
sel, spoke of the colonel, as they might of any 
stranger, as Don Fulano, — as we should say, 
“ John Smith.” It grew to be a nickname, and 
finally Pegrum, taking his donship as a title of 
honor, had procured an act of the legislature 
dubbing him formally Don Fulano Pegrum. As 
such he is known, laughed at, become a public 


GEB RIAN’S RANCH. 


19 


man and probable Democratic Governor of Cab 
fornia. From him our quartz cavern had taken 
its name. 

I told Gerrian that I owned one quarter of the 
Don Fulano Mine. 

“ Then you be jess one quarter richer ’n ef you 
owned half, and jess three quarters richer ’n ef 
you owned the hull kit and boodle of it.” 

“ You are right,” said I. I knew it by bitter 
heart. 

“ Well stranger, less see ef we can’t banter fur 
a trade. I ’ve got a boss that ken kill ayry man. 
That ’s so ; ain’t it ? ” 

“ You say so.” 

“ You ’ve got a mine, that ’ll break ayry man, 
short pocket or long pocket. That ’s so ; ain’t 
it?” 

“ No doubt of that.” 

“ Well now ; my curwolyow ’s got grit into 
him, and so ’s that thar pile er quartz er yourn 
got gold into it. But you cant git the slugs out 
er your mineral ; and I can get the kicks a blasted 
sight thicker ’n anything softer out er my animal. 
Here’s horse agin mine, — which ’d yer rether 
hev, allowin’ ’t was toss up and win.” 

“Horse!” said I. “I don’t know how bad 
he is, and I do know that the mine is worse 
than nothing to me.” 

‘Lookerhere, stranger! You ’re goan home 


20 


JOHN BBENT. 


across lots. You want a horse. I ’m goan t<i 
stop here. I ’d jess as lives gamble off a hum 
dred or two head o’ bullocks on that Foolonner 
Mine. You can’t find ayry man round here to 
buy out your interest in that thar heap er stun 
an the hole it cum out of. It ’ll cost you 
more ’n the hul ’s wuth ef you go down to 
San Frisco and wait tell some fool comes along 
what ’s got gold he wants to buy quartz with. 
Take time now, I ’m goan to make yer a fair 
banter.” 

“ Well, make it.” 

“ I stump you to a clean swap. My hoss agin 
your mine.” 

“ Done,” said I. 

“ I allowed you ’d do it. This here is one er 
them swaps, when both sides gits stuck. I git 
the Foolonner Mine, what I can’t make go, and 
ycu ’ll be a fool on a crittur what ’ll go a heap 
more ’n you ’ll want. Haw ! haw ! ” 

And Gerrian laughed a Pike’s laugh at his 
pun. It was a laugh that had been stunted in 
its childhood by the fever and ague, and so had 
grown up husk without heart. 

“ Have the black caught,” said I, “ and we ’ll 
clinch the bargain at opce.” 

There was a Mexican vaquero slouching about 
Gerrian called to him. 

“ 0 Hozay ! kesty Sinyaw cumprader curwol 


UERKIAW’S RAUCH. 


SI 

yow nigereeto. Wamos addelanty l Corral cur- 
wolyose toethoso 1 ” 

Pike Spanish that ! If the Mexicans choose to 
understand it, why should Pikes study Castilian I 
But we must keep a sharp look-out on the new 
words that come to us from California, else our 

7 i 

new language will be full of foundlings with no 
traceable parentage. We should beware of heap- 
ing up problems for the lexicographers of the 
twentieth century : they ought to be free for har- 
monizing the universal language, half -Teutonic, 
half-Romanic, with little touches of Mandingo 
and Mandan. 

The bukkarer, as Gerrian’s Spanish entitled 
Hozay, comprehended enough of the order to 
know that he was to drive up the horses. He 
gave me a Mexican’s sulky stare, muttered a ca- 
ramba at my rashness, and lounged off, first tak- 
ing a lasso from its peg in the court. 

“ Come in, stranger,” said Gerrian, “ before we 
start, and take a drink of some of this here Mis- 
sion Dolorous wine.” 

“ How does that go down ? ” said he, pouring 
out golden juices into a cracked tumbler. 

It was the very essence of California sunshine, 
— sherry with a richness that no sherry ever had, 
— a somewhat fiery beverage, but without any 
harshness or crudity. Age would better it, as 
age betters the work of a young genius ; but stilJ 


22 


JOHN BRENT. 


tnere is something in the youth we would not wil* 
lingly resign. 

“ Very fine,” said I ; “it is romantic old Spain, 
with ardent young America interfused.” 

“ Some likes it,” says Gerrian ; “ but taint like 
good old Argee to me. I can’t git nothin’ as 
sweet as the taste of yaller corn into sperit. But 
I reckon tliar ken be stuff made out er grapes 
what ’ll make all owdoors stan’ round. This yer 
wuz made by the priests. What ken you spect 
of priests ? They ain’t more ’n liaff men nohow. 
I ’m goan to plant a wineyard er my own, and 
’fore you cum out to buy another quartz mine, 
l ’ll hev some of tlier strychnine what ’ll wax 
Burbon County ’s much ’s our inyans here ken 
«rax them low-lived smellers what they grow to 
old Pike.” 


CHAPTER III. 


DON FULANO. 

Hector of Troy, Homer’s Hector, was my first 
hero in literature. Not because he loved his 
wife and she him, as I fancy that noble wives 
and husbands love in the times of trial now ; but 
simply because he was Hippodamos, one that 
could master the horse. 

As soon as I knew Hector, I began to emulate 
him. My boyish experiments were on donkeys, 
and failed. “I could n’t wallop ’em. 0 no, 
no ! ” That was my difficulty. Had I but met 
an innocent and docile donkey in his downy 
years ! Alas ! only the perverted donkey, bristly 
and incorrigible, came under my tutorship. I 
was too humane to give him stick enough, and so 
he mastered me. 

Horses I learned to govern by the law of love. 
The relation of friendship once established be- 
tween man and horse, there is no trouble. A 
centaur is created. The man wills whither ; the 
horse, at the will of his better half, does his best 
to go thither. I became, very early, Hippodamos, 


24 


JOHN BRENT. 


not by force, but by kindness. All lower beings, 
— fiendish beings apart, — unless spoilt by treach 
ery, seek the society of the higher ; as man, by 
nature, loves God. Horses will do all they know 
for men, if man will* only let them. All they 
need is a slight hint to help their silly willing 
brains, and they dash with ardor at their business 
of galloping a mile a minute, or twenty miles an 
hour, or of leaping a gully, or pulling tonnage. 
They put so much reckless, break-neck frenzy in 
their attempt to please and obey the royal per- 
sonage on their back, that* he needs to be brave 
indeed to go thoroughly with them. 

The finer the horse, the more delicate the mag- 
netism between him and man. Knight and his 
steed have an affinity for each other. I fancied 
that German’s black, after our mutual friendly 
recognition on the prairie, would like me better 
as our intimacy grew. 

After hobnobbing with cracked tumblers of the 
Mission Dolores wine, Gerrian and I mounted 
our mustangs and rode toward the oorral. 

All about on the broad slopes, the ranchero’* 
countless cattle were feeding. It was a patri 
archal scene. The local patriarch, in a red flan 
nel shirt purpled by sun and shower, in old 
buckskin breeches with the fringe worn away 
and decimated along its files whenever a thong 
was wanted, in red-topped boots with the 


DOJ FULANO. 


26 


maker’s name, Ab 1 Cushing, Lynn, Mass., 
stamped in gilt lei ers on the red, — in such 
costume the local p itriarch hardly recalled those 
turbaned and whila-robed sheiks of yore, Abra- 
ham and his Isaac. But he represented the 
same period of history modernized, and the 
fame type of nan Americanized ; and I have 
no doubt his posterity will turn out better than 
Abraham’s, and scorn peddling, be it Austrian 
loans or “ ole do’.” 

The cattle scampered away from us, as we 
rode, hardly less wild than the buffaloes on the 
Platte. Whenever we rose on the crest of a 
hillock, we could see several thousands of the 
little fierce bullocks, — some rolling away in 
flight, in a black breadth, like a shaken carpet; 
some standing in little groups, like field officers 
at a review, watching the movements as squad- 
ron after squadron came and went over the 
scene ; some, as arbitrators and spectators, sur- 
rounding a pair of champion bulls butting and 
bellowing in some amphitheatre among the 
swells of land. 

“I tell you what it is, stranger,” said Ger- 
rian, halting and looking proudly over the land- 
scape, “ I would n’t swop my place with General 
Price at the White House.” 

“I should think not,” said I; “bullocks ar* 
better company than office-seekers.” 
a 


26 


JOHN BRENT. 


It was a grand, simple scene. All open coun* 
try, north and south, as far as the eye could see, 
Eastward rose the noble blue barrier of the Si- 
erra, with here and there a field, a slope, a spot, 
or a pinnacle of the snow that names it Nevada. 
A landscape of larger feeling than any we can 
show in the old States, on the tame side of the 
continent. Those rigorous mountain outlines 
on the near horizon utterly dwarf all our wood- 
ed hills, Alleghanies, Greens, Whites. A race 
trained within sight of such loftiness of nature 
must needs be a loftier race than any this land 
has yet known. Put cheap types of mankind 
within the influence of the sublimities, and they 
are cowed; but the great-hearted expand with 
vaster visions. A great snow-peak, like one of 
the Tacomas of Oregon, is a terrible monitor 
over a land ; but it is also a benignant sover- 
eign, a presence, calm, solemn, yet not without 
a cheering and jubilant splendor. A range of 
sharp, peremptory mountains, like the Sierra Ne- 
vada, insists upon taking thought away from the 
grovelling flats where men do their grubbing for 
the bread of daily life, and up to the master 
heights, whither in all ages seers have gone to 
be nearer mystery and God. 

It was late August. All the tall grass and wild 
oats and barley, over lift, level, and hollow, were 
rip* yellow or warm brown, — a golden mantle 


DON FULANO. 


27 


over the golden soil. There were but two colors 
in the simple, broad picture, — clear, deep, scim 
tillating blue in the sky, melting blue in the 
mountains, and all the earth a golden surging 
sea. 

“ It ’s a bigger country ’n old Pike or Missourer 
anywhar,” says Gerrian, giving his ‘curwolyow’ 
the spur. “ I ’d ruther hev this, even ef the 
shakes wuz here instidd of thar, and havin’ their 
grab reglar twice t a day all the year round.” 

As we rode on, our ponies half hidden in the 
dry, rustling grass of a hollow, a tramp of hoofs 
came to us with the wind, — a thrilling sound ! 
with something free and vigorous in it that the 
charge of trained squadrons never has. 

“ Thar they come ! ” cried Gerrian ; “ thar ’s a 
rigiment wuth seeing. They can’t show you a 
sight like that to the old States.” 

“ No indeed. The best thing to be hoped there 
in the way of stampede is when a horse kicks 
through a dash-board, kills a coachman, shatters 
a carriage, dissipates a load of women and chil- 
dren, and goes tearing down a turnpike, with 
4 6old to an omnibus ’ awaiting him at the end of 
his run-away ! ” 

We halted to pass the coming army of riderless 
steeds in review. 

There they came ! German’s whole band of 
horses in full career ! First, their heads suddenly 


28 


JOHN BRENT. 


lifted above a crest of the prairie , then the} 
burst over, like the foam and spray of a black, 
stormy wave when a blast strikes it, and wildly 
swept by us with manes and tails flaring in the 
wind. It was magnificent. My heart of a horse 
man leaped in my breast. 44 Hurrah ! ” I cried. 

44 Hurrah ’t is ! ” said Gerrian. 

The herd dashed by in a huddle, making foi 
the corral. 

Just behind, aloof from the rush and scamper 
of his less noble brethren, came the black, my 
purchase, my old friend. 

44 Ef you ever ride or back that curwolyow,” 
says Gerrian, 44 1 ’ll eat a six-shooter, loaded and 
capped.” 

44 You ’d better begin, then, at once,” rejoined 
I, 44 whetting your teeth on Derringers. I mean 
to ride him, and you shall be by when I do it.” 

It was grand to see a horse that understood 
and respected himself so perfectly. One, too, 
that meant the world should know that he was 
the very chiefest chief of his race, proud with 
the blood of a thousand kings. How masterly 
he looked! How untamably he stepped! The 
herd was galloping furiously. He disdained to 
break into a gallop. He trotted after, a hundred 
feet behind the hindmost, with large and liberal 
action. And even at this half speed easily over- 
taking his slower comrades, he from time to time 


DON FULANO. 


29 


paused , bounded in the air, tossed his head, 
flung out his legs, and then strode on again, 
writhing all over with suppressed power. 

There was not a white spot upon him, except 
where a flake of foam from his indignant nostril 
had caught upon his flank. A thorough-bred 
horse, with the perfect tail and silky mane of a 
noble race. His coat glistened, as if the best 
groom in England had just given him the final 
touches of his toilette for a canter in Rotten 
Row. But it seems a sin to compare such a free 
rover of the prairie with any less favored brother, 
who needs a groom, and has felt a currycomb. 

Hard after the riderless horses came Jos6, 
the vaquero, on a fast mustang. As he rode, he 
whirled his lasso with easy turn of the wrist. 

The black, trotting still, and halting still to 
curvet and caracole, turned back his head con- 
temptuously at his pursuer. “ Mexicans may 
chase their own ponies and break their spirit by 
brutality ; but an American horse is no more 
to be touched by a Mexican than an American 
man. Bah! make your cast! Dont trifle with 
your lasso ! I challenge you. Jerk away, Senor 
Greaser! I give you as fair a chance as you 
could wish.” 

So the black seemed to say, with his provoking 
backward glance and his whinny of disdain. 

Jos6 took the hint. He dug cruel spurs into 


80 


JOHN BRENT. 


his horse. The mustang leaped forward. The 
black gave a tearing bound and quickened his 
pace, but still waited the will of his pursuer. 

They were just upon us, chased and chaser, 
thundering down the slope, when the vaquero, 
checking his wrist at the turn, flung his lasso 
itraight as an arrow for the black’s head. 

I could hear the hide rope sing through the 
summer air, for a moment breezeless. 

Will he be taken! Will horse or man be 
victor ! 

The loop of the lasso opened like a hoop. It 
hung poised for one instant a few feet before the 
horse’s head, vibrating in the air, keeping its 
circle perfect, waiting for the vaquero’s pull to 
tighten about that proud neck and those swelling 
shoulders. 

Hurrah ! 

Through it went the black. 

With one brave bound he dashed through the 
open loop. He touched only to spurn its vain 
assault with his hindmost hoof. 

“ Hurrah ! ” I cried. 

“ Hurrah ! ’t is,” shouted Gerrian. 

Jos6 dragged in his spurned lasso. 

The black, with elated head, and tail waving 
like a banner, sprang forward, closed in with the 
caballada; they parted for his passage, he took 
his leadership, and presently was lost with his 
suite over the swells of the prairie. 


DON FULANO. 


U 


“ Mucho malicho ! ” cried Gerrian to Jos^ 
not knowing that his Californian Spanish was in- 
terpreting Hamlet. “ He ought to hev druv ’em 
straight to corral. But I don’t feel so sharp set 
on lettin’ you hev that black after that shine. 
Reg’lar circus, only tliar never was no sich seen 
in no circus ! You ’ll never ride him, allowin’ 
he ’s cotched, no more ’n you ’il ride a alligator.” 

Meantime, loping on, we had come in sight of 
the corral. There, to our great surprise, the 
whole band of horses had voluntarily entered. 
They were putting their heads together as the 
manner of social horses is, and going through 
kissing manoeuvres in little knots, which pres- 
ently were broken up by the heels of some ill- 
mannered or jealous brother. They were very 
probably discussing the black’s act of horseman- 
ship, as men after the ballet discuss the first en- 
trechat of the danseuse. 

We rode up and fastened our horses. The 
black was within the corral, pawing the ground, 
neighing, and whinnying. His companions kept 
at a respectful distance. 

“ Don’t send in Jos6 ! ” said I to Gerrian. 
“ Only let him keep off the horses, so that I shall 
not be kicked, and I will try my hand at the 
black alone.” 

“ I ’ll hev ’em all turned out except that black 
devil, and then you ken go in and take your cwn 


82 


JO/ £N brent. 


resk with him. Akk je Jos6 ! ” continued the ran 
chero, “ fwarer toet aose ! Dayher hel diablo ! ” 

Jos6 drove the nerd out of the staked enclos- 
ure. The black showed no special disposition 
to follow. He tr >tted about at his ease, snuffing 
at the stakes and bars. 

I entered alone. Presently he began to repeat 
the scene of our first meeting on the prairie. It 
was not many minutes before we were good 
friends. He would bear my caresses and my arm 
about his ne^k, and that was all for an hour. 
At last, after a good hour’s work, I persuaded 
him to accept a halter. Then by gentle seduc- 
tions I induced him to start and accompany me 
homeward. 

Gerrian and the Mexican looked on in great 
wonderment. 

“ Praps that is the best way,” said the modern 
patriarch, “ ef a man has got patience. Looker 
here, stranger, ain’t you a terrible fellow among 
women ? ” 

I confessed my want of experience. 

“ V/ell, you will be when your time comes. I 
allov ed from seeing you l undle that thar hoss, 
that you had g«t your hand in on women, — 
the / is the wust devils to tame I ever seed.” 

I had made my arrangements to start about 
t* > first of September, with the Sacramento mail- 


DON KULANO. 


38 


ride 1*8, a brace of jolly dogs, brave fellows, who, 
with their scalps as well secured as might be, ran 
the gauntlet every alternate month to Salt Lake. 
That was long before the days of coaches. No 
pony express was dreamed of. A trip across the 
plains, without escort or caravan, had still some 
elements of heroism, if it have not to-day. 

Meantime one of my ardent partners from 
San Francisco arrived to take my place at the 
mine. 

“ I don’t think that quartz looks quite so goldy 
as it did at a distance,” said he. 

“ Well/’ said old Gerrian, who had come over 
to take possession of his share of our bargain ; 
“ it is whiter ’n it ’s yaller. It does look about 
,as bad off fur slugs as the cellar of an Indiana 
bank. But I b’leeve in luck, and luck is olluz 
comm’ at me with its head down and both eyes 
shet. I ’m goan to shove bullocks down this here 
lole, or the price of bullocks, until I make it 
pay.” 

And it is a fact, that by the aid of Gerrian’s 
capital, and improved modern machinery, after a 
long struggle, the Fulano mine has begun to yield 
a sober, quiet profit. 

My wooing of the black occupied all my leisure 
during my last few days. Every day, a circle of 
Pikes collected to see my management. I hope 
they took lessons in the law of kindness. The 


84 


JOHN BRENT. 


horse was well known throughout the country, 
and my bargain with Gerrian was noised abroad. 

The black would tolerate no one but me. With 
me he established as close a brotherhood as can 
be between man and beast. He gave me to un 
derstand, by playful protest, that it was only by 
his good pleasure that I was permitted on his 
back, and that he endured saddle and bridle ; as 
to spur or whip, they were not thought of by 
either. He did not obey, but consented. I ex- 
ercised no control. We were of one mind. We 
became a Centaur. I loved that horse as I have 
loved nothing else yet, except the other person- 
ages with whom and for whom he acted in this 
history. 

^1 named him Don Fulano. 

I had put my mine into him. He represented 
to me the whole visible, tangible result of two 
long, workaday years, dragged out in that dreary 
spot among the Pikes, with nothing in view ex- 
cept barren hill-sides ravaged by mines, and the 
unbeautiful shanties of miners as rough as the 
landscape. 

Don Fulano, a horse that would not sell, was 
my profit for the sternest and roughest work of 
my life! I looked at him, and looked at the 
mine, that pile of pretty pebbles, that pile of 
bogus ore, and I did not regret my bargain. 1 
never have regretted it. “ My kingdom for a 


DON FULANO. 


horse,” — so much of a kingdom as 1 had, I 
had given. 

But was that all I had gained, — an unsalable 
horse for two years’ work ? All, — unless, per- 
haps, I conclude to calculate the incalculable; 
unless I estimate certain moral results I had 
grasped, and have succeeded in keeping ; unless 
I determine to value patience, purpose, and pluck 
by dollars and cents. However, I have said 
enough of myself, and my share in the prepara- 
tions for the work of my story. 

Retire, then, Richard Wade, and enter the real 
hero of the tale. 


CHAPTER IV. 


JOHN BRENT. 

A man who does not love luxury is merely an 
incomplete man, or, if he prefers, an ignoramus. 
A man who cannot dispense with luxury, and 
who does not love hard fare, hard bed, hard 
travel, and all manner of robust, vigorous, tense 
work, is a weakling and a soft. Sybaris is a 
pretty town, rose-leaves are a delicate mattrass, 
Lydian measures are dulcet to soul and body : 
also, the wilderness is “no mean city”; hemlock 
or heather for couch, brocken for curtain, are not 
cruelty; prairie gales are a brave lullaby for 
adults. 

Simple furniture and simple fare a campaignei 
needs for the plains, — for chamber furniture, a 
pair of blankets ; for kitchen furniture, a frying- 
pan and a coffee-pot ; for table furniture, a tin 
mug and his bowie-knife : Sybaris adds a tin 
plate, a spoon, and even a fork. The list of pro- 
visions is as short, — pork, flour, and coffee ; that 
is all, unless Sybaris should indulge in a modi- 
cum of tea, a dose or two of sugar, and a vial 
of vinegar for holidays. 


JOHN BBENT. 


87 


1 had several days for preparation, until my 
companions, the mail-riders, should arrive. One 
morning I was busy making up my packs of such 
luxuries as I have mentioned for the journey, 
when I heard the clatter of horses’ feet, and ob- 
served a stranger approach and ride up to the 
door of my shanty. He was mounted upon a 
powerful iron-gray horse, and drove a pack mule 
and an Indian pony. 

My name was on an elaborately painted shingle 
over the door. It was my own handiwork, and 
quite a lion in that region. I felt, whenever I 
inspected that bit of high art, that, fail or win at 
the mine, I had a resource. Indeed, my Pike 
neighbors seemed to consider that I was unjusti- 
fiably burying my artistic talents. Many a not 
unseemly octagonal slug, witfi Moffatt & Co.’s 
imprimatur of value, had been offered me if I 
would paint up some miner’s hell, as “The 
True Paradise,” or “ The Shades and Caffy de 
Paris.” 

The new-comer read my autograph on the 
shingle, looked about, caught sight of me at 
work in the hot shade, dismounted, fastened his 
horses, and came toward me. It was not the 
fashion in California, at that time, to volunteer 
civility or acquaintance. Men had to announce 
themselves, and prove their claims. I sat where 
I was, and surveyed the stranger. 


38 


JOHN BRENT. 


“ The Adonis of the copper-skins ! ” 1 said to 
myself. “ This is the 4 Young Eagle/ or tho 
4 Sucking Dove/ or the 4 Maiden’s Bane/ or 
some other great chief of the cleanest Indian 
tribe on the continent. A beautiful youth ! 0 

Fenimore, why are you dead ! There are a 
dozen romances in one look of that young brave. 
One chapter might be written on his fringed 
buckskin shirt; one on his equally fringed leg- 
gings, with their stripe of porcupine-quills ; and 
one short chapter on his moccasons, with their 
scarlet cloth instep-piece, and his cap of otter fur 
decked with an eagle’s feather. What a poem 
the fellow is ! I wish I was an Indian myself for 
such a companion ; or, better, a squaw, to be 
made love to by him.” 

As he approached, I perceived that he was 
not copper, but bronze. A pale-face certainly ! 
That is, a pale-face tinged by the brazen sun of 
a California summer. Not less handsome, how- 
ever, as a Saxon, than an Indian brave. As 
soon as I identified him as one of my own race, 
I began to fancy I had seen him before. 

44 If he were but shaved and clipped, black- 
coated, booted, gloved, hatted with a shiny cylin 
der, disarmed of his dangerous looking arsenal, 
and armed with a plaything of a cane, — in short, 
if he were metamorphosed from a knight-errant 
into a carpet-knight, changed from a smooth 


JOHN BRENT. 


39 


rougn into a smooth smooth, — seems to me I 
should know him, or know that I had knowx 
him once.” 

He came up, laid his hand familiarly on my 
arm, and said, “ What, Wade ? Don’t you re- 
member me ? John Brent.” 

“ I hear your voice. I begin to see you now. 
Hurrah ! ” 

“ How was it I did not recognize you,” said I, 
after a fraternal greeting. 

“ Ten years have presented me with this for a 
disguise,” said he, giving his moustache a twirl. 
“ Ten years of experience have taken all the girl 
out of me.” 

“ What have you been doing these ten years, 
since College, 0 many-sided man ? ” 

“ Grinding my sides against the Adamant, 
every one.” 

“ Has your diamond begun to see light, and 
shine ? ” 

“ The polishing-dust dims it still.” 

“ How have you found life, kind or cruel ? ” 

“Certainly not kind, hardly cruel, unless in- 
difference is cruelty.” 

“But indifference, want of sympathy, must 
have been a positive relief after the aggressive 
cruelty of your younger days.” 

“ And what have you been doing, Richard ? ” 

“ Everything that Yankees do, — digging last* 


JOHN BRENT. 


40 

“ That has been my business, too. as veil as 
polishing.” 

“The old work, I suppose, to root out lies 
and plant in truth.” 

“That same slow task. Tunnelling too, to 
find my way out of the prison of doubt into the 
freedom of faith.” 

“ You are out, then, at last. Happy and at 
peace, I hope.” 

“At peace, hardly happy. How can such a 
lonely fellow be happy ? ” 

“We are peers in bereavement now. My 
family are all gone, except two little children 
of my sister.” 

“Not quite peers. You remember your rela- 
tives tenderly. I have no such comfort.” 

Odd talk this may seem, to hold with an old 
friend. Ten years apart! We ought to have 
met in merrier mood. We might, if we had 
parted with happy memories. But it was not 
so. Youth had been a harsh season to Brent. 
If Fate destines a man to teach, she compels him 
to learn, — bitter lessons, too, whether he will or 
no. Brent was a man of genius. All experi 
ence, therefore, piled itself upon him. He must 
learn the immortal consolations by probing aD 
suffering himself. 

Brent’s story is a short one or a long one. It 
can be told in a page, or in a score of volumes 


JOHN BRENT. 


4! 


We had met fourteen years before in the same 
pew of Berkeley College Chapel, grammars by 
our side and tutors before us, two well-crammed 
candidates for the Freshman Class. Brent was 
a delicate, beautiful, dreamy boy. My counter- 
part. I was plain prose, and needed the poetic 
element. We became friends. I was steady; 
he was erratic. I was calm ; he was passionate. 
I was reasonably happy ; he was totally miser- 
able. For good cause. 

The cause was this ; and it has broken weaker 
hearts than Brent’s. His heart was made of 
stuff that does not know how to break. 

Dr. Swerger was the cause of Brent’s misery. 
The Reverend Dr. Swerger was a brutal man. 
One who believes that God is vengeance natu- 
rally imitates his God, and does not better his 
model. 

Swerger was Brent’s step-father. Mrs. Brent 
was pretty, silly, rich, and a widow. Swerger 
wanted his wife pretty, and not too wise; and 
that she was rich balanced, perhaps a little more 
than balanced, the slight objection of widow- 
hood. 

Swerger naturally hated his step-son. One in- 
tuition of Brent’s was worth all the thoughts of 
Swerger ’s life-time. A clergyman who starts 
with believing in hells, devils, original sin, and 
such crudities, can never be anything in the nine- 


42 


JOHN BRENT. 


teenth century but a tyrant or a nuisance, if he 
has any logic, as fortunately few of such misbe- 
lievers have. Swerger had logic. So had the 
boy Brent, — the logic of a true, pure, loving 
heart. He could not stand Swerger’s coming 
into his dead father’s house and deluding his 
mother with a black fanaticism. 

So Swerger gave him to understand that he 
was a child of hell. He won his wife to shrink 
from her son. Between them they lacerated the 
boy. He was a brilliant fellow, quite the king 
of us all. But he worked under a cloud. He 
could not get at any better religion than Swer- 
ger’s; and perhaps there was none better — or 
much better — to be had at that time. 

One day matters came to a quarrel. Swerger 
cursed his step-son ; of course not in the same 
terms the sailors used on Long Wharf, but with 
no better spirit. The mother, cowed by her 
husband, backed him, and abandoned the boy. 
They drove him out of the house, to go where he 
would. He came to me. I gave him half my 
quarters, and tried to cheer him. No use. This 
bitter wrong to his love to God and to man al- 
most crushed him. He brooded and despaired. 
He began to fancy himself the lost soul Swerger 
had callbd him. I saw that he would die or go 
mad ; or, if he had strength enough to react, it 
would be toward a hapless rebellion against con- 


JOHN BBENT. 


48 


rational laws, and so make his blight ruin. I 
hurried him off to Europe, for change of scene. 
That was ten years ago, and I had not seen him 
since. I knew, however, that his mother wai 
visited by compunctions ; that she wished to be 
reconciled to her son ; that Swerger refused, an^ 
renewed his anathemas ; that he bullied the poor 
little woman to death ; that Brent had to wring 
the property out of him by a long lawsuit, which 
the Swergerites considered an unconstitutional 
and devilish proceeding, another proof of total 
depravity. Miserable business ! It went near to 
crush all the innocence, faith, hope, and religion 
out of my friend’s life. 

Of course this experience had a tendency to 
drive Brent out of the common paths, to make 
him a seer instead of a doer. The vulgar can- 
not comprehend that, when a man is selected by 
character and circumstance, acting together un- 
der the name of destiny, to be a seer, he must 
see to the end before he begins to say what he 
sees, to be a guide, a monitor, and a helper. The 
vulgar, therefore, called Brent a wasted life, a 
man of genius manque, a pointless investigator, a 
purposeless dreamer. The vulgar loves to make 
up its mind prematurely. The vulgar cannot 
abide a man who lives a blameless life so far as 
personal conduct goes, and yet declines to accept 
worldly tests of success, worldly principles of 


44 


JOHN BRENT. 


action. If a man rebels against laws, and takei 
the side of vice, that the vulgar can comprehend ; 
but rebellion on the side of virtue is revolution- 
ary, destroys all the old landmarks, must be 
crucified. 

Brent, therefore, boy and man, had had tough 
experience. I knew of his career, though we 
had not met. He had wished and attempted, 
perhaps prematurely, to make his fine genius of 
definite use. He wanted to make the nation’s 
prayers ; but the Swergerites pronounced his 
prayers Paganism. He wanted to put the na- 
tion’s holiest thoughts into poetry ; they called 
his poetry impious. He wanted to stir up the 
young men of his day to a franker stand on the 
side of genuine liberty, and a keener hatred of 
all slavery, and so to uphold chivalry and hero- 
ism; the cynical people scoffed, they said he 
would get over his boyish folly, that he ought 
to have lived before Bayard, or half-way through 
the millennium, but that the kind of stuff he 
preached and wrote with such unnecessary fer- 
vor did not suit the nineteenth century, a prac- 
tical country and a practical age. 

So Brent paused in his work. The boyhood’s 
unquestioning ardor went out of him. The in- 
terregnum between youth and complete man- 
hood came. He gave up his unripe attempt to 
be a doer, and turned seer again. Observation 


JOHN BRENT. 


45 


is the proper business of a man’s third decade ; 
the less a spokesman has to say about his resulti 
until thirty, the better, unless he wants to eat 
his words, or to sustain outgrown formulas. Brent 
discovered this, and went about the world stil] 
pointless, purposeless, manquS , as they said, — 
minding his own business, getting his facts. His 
fortune made him independent. He could go 
where he pleased. 

This was the man who rode up on the iron- 
gray horse. This was the Indianesque Saxon 
who greeted me. It put color and poetry into 
my sulky life to see him. 

“ Off, old fellow ? ” said Brent, pointing his 
whip at my traps. “ I can’t hear him squeak, 
but I’m sure there is pig in that gunny-bag, 
and flour in that sack. I hope you ’re not away 
for a long trip just as I have come to squat with 
you.” 

“No longer than home across the plains.” 

“ Bravo ! then we ’ll ride together, instead of 
squatting together. Instead of your teaching 
me quartz-mining, I’ll guide you across the 
Rocky s.” 

“You know the way, then.” 

“ Every foot of it. Last fall I hunted up from 
Mexico and New Mexico with an English friend. 
We made winter head-quarters with Captain Ru- 
by at Fort Laramie, knocking about all winter 


46 


JOHN BRENT. 


in that neighborhood, and at the North among 
the Wind River Mountains. Early in the spring 
we went off toward Luggernel Alley and the 
Luggernel Springs, and camped there for a 
month.” 

“ Luggernel Alley ! Luggernel Springs ! Those 
are new names to me ; in fact, my Rocky Moun- 
tain geography is naught.” 

“You ought to see them. Luggernel Alley is 
one of the wonders of this continent.” 

So I think now that I have seen it. It was 
odd too, what afterward I remembered as a coin- 
cidence, that our first talk should have turned 
to a spot where we were to do and to suffer, by 
and by. 

“ There is something Frenchy in the name 
Luggernel,” said I. 

“Yes; it is a corruption of La Grenouille. 
There was a famous Canadian trapper of "that 
name, or nickname. He discovered the springs. 
The Alley, a magnificent gorge, grand as the Via 
Mala, leads to them. I will describe the whole 
to you at length, some time.” 

“ Who was your English friend ? ” 

“ Sir Biron Biddulph, — a capital fellow, pink 
in the cheeks, warm in the heart, strong in the 
shanks, mighty on the hunt.” 

“ Hunting for love of it ? ” 

“ No ; for love itself, or rather the lack of love 


JOHN BRENT. 


47 


A lovely lady in his native Lancashire would not 
smile ; so he turned butcher of buffalo, bears, 
and big-horn.” 

44 Named he the 4 fair but frozen maid 9 ? ” 

“ Never. It seems there is something hapless 
or tragic about her destiny. She did not love 
him ; so he came away to forget her. He made 
no secret of it. We arrived in Utah last July, 
on our way to see California. There he got let- 
ters from home, announcing, as he told me, some 
coming misfortune to the lady. As a friend, no 
longer a lover, he proposed to do what he could 
to avert the danger. I left him in Salt Lake, 
preparing to return, and came across country 
alone.” 

44 Alone ! through the Indian country, with 
that tempting iron-gray, those tempting packs, 
that tempting scalp, with its love-locks ! Why, 
the sight of your scalp alone would send a thrill 
through every Indian heart from Bear River to 
the Dalles of the Columbia! Perhaps, by the 
way, you ’ve been scalped already, and are safe?” 

“ No ; the mop ’s my own mop. Scalp *s all 
right. Wish I could say the same of the brains. 
The Indians would not touch me. I am half 
savage, you know. In this and my former trip, 
I have become a privileged character, — some- 
thing of a medicine-man.” 

44 1 suppose you can talk to them. You used 
to have the gift of tongues.” 


48 


JOHN BRENT. 


“ Yes ; I hare choked down two or of 
their guttural lingos, and can sputter them up 
as easily as I used to gabble iambic trimeters. I 
like the fellows. They are not ideal heroes ; they 
have not succeeded in developing a civilization, 
or in adopting ours, and therefore I suppose they 
must go down, as pine-trees go down to make 
room for tougher stalks and fruitier growth : but 
I like the fellows, and don’t believe in their utter 
deviltry. I have always given the dogs a good 
name, and they have been good dogs to me. I 
like thorough men, too ; and what an Indian 
knows, he knows, so that it is a part of him. It 
is a good corrective for an artificial man to find 
himself less of a man, under certain difficulties, 
than a child of nature. You know this, of course, 
as well as I do.” 

“ Yes ; we campaigners get close to the heart 
of Mother Nature, and she teaches us, tenderly 
or roughly, but thoroughly. By the way, how 
did you find me out ? ” 

“ I heard some Pikes, at a camp last night, 
talking of a person who had sold a quartz mine 
for a wonderful horse. I asked the name. They 
told me yours, and directed me here. Except for 
this talk, I should have gone down to San Fran- 
cisco, and missed you.” 

“ Lucky horse ! He brings old friends to- 
gether, — a good omen ! Come and see him.” 


CHAPTER ? 


ACROSS COUNT SY. 

I led my friend toward the corral. 

“ A fine horse that gray of yours,” said I. 

“Yes; a splendid fellow, — stanch and truo . 
He will go till he dies.” 

“ In tip-top condition, too. What do you call 
him ? ” 

“ Pumps.” 

“Why Pumps? Why not Pistons ? or Cranks? 
or Walking-Beams ? or some part of the steam- 
engine that does the going directly ? ” 

“ You have got the wrong clue. I named him 
after our old dancing-master. Pumps the horse 
has a favorite amble, precisely like that skipping 
walk that Pumps the man used to set us for 
model, — a mincing gait, that prejudiced me, 
until I saw what a stride he kept for the time 
when stride was wanting.” 

“ Here is my black gentleman. What do you 
think of him ? ” 

Don Fulano trotted up and licked a handful 
of corn from my hand, Corn was four dollar! 


60 


JOHN BRENT. 


a bushel. The profits of the “Foolonner” Mine 
did not allow of such luxuries. But old Gerrian 
had presented me with a sack of it. 

Fulano crunched his corn, snorted his thanks, 
and then snuffed questioningly, and afterwards 
approvingly, about the stranger. 

“ Soul and body of Bucephalus ! ” says Brent. 
“ There is a quadruped that is a horse.” 

“ Is n’t he ? ” said I, thrilling with pride for 
him. 

“ To look at such a fellow is a romance. He 
is the most beautiful thing I ever saw.” 

“ No exceptions ? ” 

“Not one.” 

“ Woman ! lovely woman ! ” I cried, with 
mock enthusiasm. 

“If I had ever seen a woman to compare with 
that horse, after her kind, I should not be here.” 

“ Where then ? ” 

“ Wherever she was. Living for her. Dying 
for her. Chasing her if she were dragged from 
me. Snatching her from the jaws of death.” 

“ Hold hard ! You talk as furiously as if you 
saw such a scene before your eyes.” 

“Your horse brings up all the chivalric tales 
I have ever read. If these were knightly days, 
and two brothers in arms, like you and myself, 
ever rescued distressed damsels from the grip of 
caitiffs vile, we ought to be mounted upon a pair 


ACROSS COUNTRY. 


61 


of Don Fulanos when we rode the miscreants 
down.” 

The fine sensitiveness of a poetic man like 
Brent makes a prophet of him, — that is to say, 
a man who has the poet’s delicate insight into 
character anticipates everything that character 
will do. So Brent was never surprised ; though 
I confess I was, when I found men, horses, and 
places doing what he had hinted long before. 

“ Well,” continued I, “ I paid two years’ work 
for my horse. Was it too much ? Is he worth 
it?” 

“Everything is worth whatever one gives for 
it. The less you get, the more you get. Proved 
by the fact that the price of all life is death. Jar 
cob served seven years for an ugly wife; why 
should n’t an honester man serve two for a beau 
tiful horse?” 

“ Jacob, however, had a pretty wife thrown in 
when he showed discontent.” 

“ Perhaps you will. If the Light of the Harem 
of Sultan Brigham should see you prancing on 
that steed, she would make one bound to your 
trapper and leave a dark where the Light was.” 

“ I do not expect to develop a taste for Mor- 
mon ladies.” 

“ It is not very likely. They are a second- 
hand set. But still one can imagine some luck- 
less girl with a doltish father ; some old chap 


62 


JOHN BRENT. 


who had outlived his hopes at home, and fancied 
he was going to be Melchisedec, Moses, and 
Abraham, rolled into one, in Utah, toted out 
there by some beastly Elder, who wanted the 
daughter for his thirteenth. That would be a 
chance for you and Don Fulano to interfere. 
[ ’ll promise you myself and Pumps, if you 
want to stampede anybody’s wives from the New 
Jerusalem as we go through.” 

“ I suppose we have no time to lose, if we ex- 
pect to make Missouri before winter.” 

“No. We will start as soon as you are 
ready.” 

“ To-morrow morning, if you please.” 

“ To-morrow it is.” 

To-morrow it was. Having a comrade, I need 
not wait for the mail-riders. Lucky that I did 
not. They came only three days after us. But 
on the Humboldt, the Indians met them, and 
obliged them to doff the tops of their heads, as a 
mark of respect to Indian civilization. 

We started, two men and seven animals. 
Each of us had a pack mule and a roadster 
pony, with a spare one, in case accident should 
befall either of his wiry brethren. 

Pumps and Fulano, as good friends as their 
masters, trotted along without burden. We rode 
them rarely. Only often enough to remind 


ACROSS COUNTRY. 


53 

them how a saddle feels, and that dangling legs 
are not frightful. They must be fresh, if we 
should ever have to run for it. We might; 
Indians might cast fanciful glances at the tops 
of our heads. The other horses might give out. 
So Pumps, with his fantastic dancing-step, that 
would not crush a grasshopper, and Fulano, 
grander, prouder, and still untamable to any 
one but me, went on waiting for their time of 
action. 

I skip the first thousand miles of our journey. 
Not that it was not exciting, but it might be 
anybody’s journey. Myriads have made it. It 
is an old story. I might perhaps make it a new 
story; but I crowd on now to the proper spot 
where this drama is to be enacted. The play 
halts while the scenes shift. 

One figure fills up to my mind this whole 
hiatus of the many-leagued skip. I see Brent 
every step and every moment. He was a model 
comrade. 

Camp-life tests a man thoroughly. Common 
toil, hardship, peril, itnd sternly common viaticum 
of pork, dough-cakes, and coffee sans everything, 
are a daily ordeal of good-nature. It is not hard 
for two men to be civil across a clean white table- 
cloth at a club. If they feel dull, they can study 
the carte ; if spiteful, they can row the steward ; 
if surly, they can muddle themselves cheerful • 


54 


;OHN BKEN7 


if they bore each other, finally and hopelessly 
they can exchange cigars and part for all time, 
and still be friends, not foes. But the illusions 
of sham good-fellowship vanish when the carte 
du jour is pore frit au nature!, damper a discre- 
tion , and cafS a rien , always the same fare, plain 
days or lucky days, served on a blanket, on the 
ground. 

Brent and I stood the test. He was a model 
comrade, cavalier, poet, hunter, naturalist, cook. 
If there was any knowledge, skill, craft, or sleight 
of hand or brain wanted, it always seemed as 
if his whole life had been devoted to the one 
etudy to gain it. He would spring out of his 
oldnkets after a night under the stars, improvise 
a matin song to Lucifer, sketch the morning’s 
view into cloudland and the morning’s earthly 
horizon, take a shot at a gray wolf, book a new 
plant, bag a new beetle, and then, reclining on 
the lonely prairie, talk our breakfast, whose 
Soyer he had been, so full of Eden, Sybaris, the 
holocausts of Achilles, the triclinia of Lucullus, 
the automaton tables of the (Eil de Boeuf, the 
cabinets of the Freres Proven^aux, and the 
dinners of civilization where the wise and the 
witty meet to shine and sparkle for the beauti- 
ful, that our meagre provender suffered “ change 
into something rich and strange ” ; the flakes of 
faed pork became peacocks’ tongues, every quoit 


ACROSS COUNTRY. 


65 


of tougb toasted dough a vol au vent, and the 
coffee that never saw milk or muscovado a 
diviner porridge than ever was sipped on the 
sunny summits of Olympus. Such a magician 
is priceless. Every object, when he looked at it, 
seemed to revolve about and exhibit its bright 
side. Difficulty skulked away from him. Dan- 
ger cowered under his eye. 

Nothing could damp his enthusiasm. Nothing 
could drench his ardor. No drowning his en- 
ergy. He never growled, never sulked, never 
snapped, never flinched. Frosty nights on the 
Sierra tried to cramp him ; foggy mornings in 
the valleys did their worst to chill him ; showers 
shrank his buckskins and soaked the macheers 
of his saddle to mere pulp ; rain pelted his blan- 
kets in the bivouac till he was a moist island in a 
muddy lake. Bah, elements ! try it on a milk- 
sop ! not on John Brent, the invulnerable. He 
laughs in the ugly phiz of Trouble. Hit some- 
body else, thou grizzly child of Erebus ! 

Brent was closer to Nature than any man I 
ever knew. Not after the manner of an artist. 
The artist can hardly escape a certain technical- 
ity. He looks at the world through the spectacles 
of his style. He loves mist and hates sunshine, 
or loves brooks and shrinks from the gloom of for- 
ests primeval, or adores meadows and haystacks, 
and dreads the far sweeping plain and the sovran 


56 


JOHN BRENT. 


snow-peak. Even the greatest artist runs a risk, 
which only the greater than greatest escape, of 
suiting Nature to themselves, not themselves to 
Nature. Brent with Nature was like a youth 
with the maiden he loves. She was always his 
love, whatever she could do ; however dressed, in 
clouds or sunshine, unchanging fair ; in what- 
ever mood, weeping or smiling, at her sweetest ; 
grand, beautiful for her grandeur ; tender, beauti- 
ful for her tenderness ; simple, lovely for her 
simplicity; careless, prettier than if she were 
trim and artful ; rough, potent, and impressive, 
a barbaric queen. 

It is not a charming region, that breadth of the 
world between the Foolonner Mine and the Great 
Salt Lake. Much is dusty desert; much is 
dreary plain, bushed with wild sage, the wretch- 
edest plant that grows ; much is rugged moun 
tain. A grim and desolate waste. But large 
and broad. Unbroken and undisturbed, in its 
solemn solitude, by prettiness. No thought of 
cottage life there, or of the tame, limited, sub 
missive civilization that hangs about lattices and 
trellises, and pets its chirping pleasures, keep 
ing life as near the cradle as it may. It is a 
region that appeals to the go and the gallop, 
that even the veriest cockney, who never saw 
beyond a vista of blocks, cannot eliminate from 
his being. It does not order man to sink into 


ACROSS COUNTRY. 


67 


a ploughman. Ploughmen may tarry in those 
dull, boundless plough-fields, the prairie lands 
of mid- America. These desert spaces, ribbed 
with barren ridges, stretch for the Bedouin tread 
of those who 

“ Love all waste 

And solitary places, where we taste 
The pleasure of believing what we see 
Is boundless, as we wish our souls to be.” 

It may be a dreary region ; but the great white 
clouds in the noons of that splendid Septem- 
ber, the red dawns before us, the red twilights 
behind, the vague mountain lines upon the far 
horizon, the sharp crag lines near at hand, the 
lambent stars that lit our bivouacs, the moon 
that paled the lambent stars, — all these had 
their glory, intenser because each fact came 
simple and alone, and challenged study and 
love with a force that shames the spendthrift 
exuberance of fuller landscapes. 

In all this time I learned to love the man John 
Brent, as I had loved the boy ; but as mature 
man loves man. I have known no more perfect 
union than that one friendship. Nothing so 
tender in any of my transitory loves for women. 
We were two who thought alike, but saw differ- 
ently, and never quarrelled because the shield 
was to him gold and to me silver. Such a friend- 
ship justifies life. All bad faith is worth en* 


68 


JOHN BRENT. 


countering for the sake of such good faith, — all 
cold shoulder for such warm heart. 

And so I bring our little party over the first 
half ol its journey. 

I will not even delay to describe Utah, not 
even for its water-melons’ sake, though that tri- 
color dainty greatly gladdened our dry jaws, as 
we followed the valley from Box Elder, the 
northernmost settlement, to the City of the 
Great Salt Lake. 

In a few days of repose we had exhausted 
Mormon civilization, and, horses and men fresh 
and in brave heart, we rode out of the modem 
Mecca, one glorious day of early October. 


CHAPTER Vi. 


JAKE SHAMBERLAIN. 

Ip Heaven’s climate approaches the perfect 
charm of an American October, I accept my 
place in advance, and book my lodgings for 
eternity. 

The climate of the best zone in America is 
transcendent for its purpose. Its purpose is to 
keep men at their keenest, at high edge and high 
ardor all the time. Then, for enchanting luxury 
of repose, when ardent summer has achieved its 
harvest, and all the measure of the year is full, 
comes ripe October, with its golden, slumberous 
air. The atmosphere is visible sunshine. Ev- 
ery leaf in the forest changes to a resplendent 
blossom. The woods are rich and splendorous, 
but not glaring. Nothing breaks the tranquil 
wealthy sentiment of the time. It is the year’s 
delightful holiday. 

In such a season we rode through the bare 
defiles of the Wasatch Mountains, wall of Utah 
on the east. We passed Echo Canon, and the 
other strait gates and rough ways through which 


60 


JOHN BREKT. 


the Latter-Day Saints win an entrance to their 
Sion. 

We met them in throngs, hard at work at 
such winning. The summer emigration of Mor 
mons was beginning to come in. No one would 
have admitted their claim to saintship from their 
appearance. If they had no better passport 
than their garb, “ Avaunt ! Procul este prof ami / ” 
would have cried any trustworthy janitor of 
Sion. Saints, if I know them, are clean, — are 
not ragged, are not even patched. Their gar- 
ments renew themselves, shed rain like Macin- 
tosh, repel dust, sweeten unsavoriness. These 
sham saints needed unlimited scouring, persons 
and raiment. We passed them, when we could, 
to windward. Poor creatures ! we shall see 
more of their kindred anon. 

We hastened on, for our way was long, and 
autumn’s hospitable days were few. Just at the 
foot of those bare, bulky mounds of mountain by 
which the Wasatch range tones off into the great 
plains between it and the Rockys, we overtook 
the Salt Lake mail party going eastward. They 
were travelling eight or ten men strong, with a 
four-mule waggon, and several horses and mulea 
driven beside for relays. 

u If Jake Shamberlain is the captain of the 
party,” said Brent, when we caught sight of them 
upon the open, “ we ’ll join them.” 


JAKE SHAMBERLATN. 


01 


“ Who is Jake Shamberlain ? ” 

“ A happy-go-lucky fellow, whom I have met 
and recognized all over the world. He has been 
a London policeman. He was pulling stroke-oar 
in the captain’s gig that took me ashore from a 
dinner on board the Firefly, British steamer, at 
the Piraeus. He has been a lay brother in a Car- 
thusian convent. He married a pretty girl in 
Boston once, went off* on a mackerel trip, and 
when he came back the pretty girl had bigamized. 
That made Mormon and polygamist of him. He 
came out two or three years ago, and, being a 
thriving fellow, has got to himself lands and 
beeves and wives without number. Biddulph 
and I stayed several days with him when we came 
through in the summer. His ranch is down the 
valley, toward Provo. He owns half the United 
States mail contract. They told me in the city 
that he intended to run this trip himself. You 
will see an odd compound of a fellow. ,, 

“ I should think so ; policeman, acolyte, man- 
of-war’s-man, Yankee husband, Mormon L Has 
he come to his finality ? ” 

“ He thinks so. He is a shrewd fellow of many 
smatterings. He says there are only two logical 
religions in the civilized world, — the Popish and 
the Mormon. Those two are the only ones that 
have any basis in authority. His convent experi- 
ence disenchanted him with Catholicism. He i* 


62 


JOHN BBENT. 


quite irreverent, is the estimable Jake. He says 
monks are a set of snuffy old reprobates. He 
says that he found celibacy tended to all manner 
of low vice ; that monogamy disappointed him ; 
so he tried the New Revelation, polygamy and 
■U. and has become an ardent propagandist 
and exhorter. Take the man as he is, and he 
has plenty of brave, honest qualities.” 

We had by this time ridden up to the mail 
party. They were moving slowly along. The 
night’s camping-spot was near. It was a bit of 
grassy level on the bank of a river, galloping over 
the pebbles with its mountain impetus still in it, 
— Green River, perhaps ; Green, or White, or 
Big Sandy, or Little Stony. My map of memory 
is veined with so many such streams, all going in 
a hurry through barren plains, and no more than 
drains on a water-shed, that I confuse their un- 
distinguishing names. Such mere business-like 
water-courses might as well be numbered, after 
the fashion of the monotonous streets of a city, 
too new for the consecration of history. Dear 
New England’s beloved brooks and rivers, slow 
through the meadows and beneath the elms, 
tumbling and cascading down the mountain-sides 
from under the darkling hemlocks into the spar- 
kle of noon, and leaping into white water between 
the files of Northern birches, — they have their 
well-remembered titles, friendly and domestic, or 


JAKE SHaMBEBLAIN. 


63 


of sturdy syllables and wilderness sound. Such 
waters have spoiled me for gutters, — Colorados, 
Arkansaws, Plattes, and Missouris. 

“ Hillo, Sliamberlain ! ” hailed Brent, riding 
up to the train. 

“ Howdydo ? Howdydo ? No swap ! ” re- 
sponded Jake, after the Indian fashion. “ Bung 
my eyes ! ef you ’re not the mate of all mates 
I ’m glad to see. Pax vobiscrum, my filly ! You 
look as fresh as an Aperel shad. Praised be the 
Lord ! ” continued he, relapsing into Mormon 
slang, “ who has sent thee again, like a brand 
from the burning, to fall into paths of pleasant- 
ness with the Saints, as they wander from the 
Promised Land to the mean section where the 
low-lived Gentiles ripen their souls for hell.” 

Droll farrago ! but just as Jake delivered it. 
He had the slang and the swearing of all climes 
and countries at his tongue’s end. 

“ Hello, stranger ! ” said he, turning to me. 
“ I allowed you was the Barrowniglit.” 

“ It ’s my friend, Richard Wade,” said Brent. 

“Yours to command, Brother Wade,” Jake 
says hospitably. “Ef you turn out prime, one 
of the out and outers, like Brother John Brent, 
I ’ll tip ’em the wink to let you off easy at the 
Judgment Day, Gentile or not. I ’ve booked 
Brother John fur Paradise ; Brother Joseph’s 
got a white robe fur him, blow high, blow low ! ’ 


64 


JOHN BRENT. 


We rode along beside Shamberlain. 

“ What did you mean just now ? ” asked my 
friend. “ You spoke of Wade’s being the bar 
onet.” 

“ I allowed you would n’t leave him behind.” 

“I don’t understand. I have not seen him 
since we left you in the summer. I ’ve been on 
to California and back.” 

M The Barrownight ’s ben stoppin’ round in 
the Yalley ever since. He seems to have a call 
to stop. Prehaps his heart is tetched, and he is 
goan to jine the Lord’s people. I left him down 
to my ranch, ten days ago, playing with a grizzly 
cub, what he ’s trying to make a gentleman of. 
A pooty average gentleman it ’ll make too.” 

“ Yery odd ! ” says Brent to me. “ Biddulph 
meant to start for home, at once, when we 
parted. He had some errand in behalf of the 
lady he had run away from.” 

“ Probably he found he could not trust his old 
wounds under her eyes again. Wants another 
year’s crust over his scarified heart.” 

“ Quite likely. Well, I wish we had known 
he was in the Yalley. We would have carried 
him back with us. A fine fellow ! Could n’t be 
a better ! ” 

“ Not raw, as Englishmen generally are ? ” 

“ No ; well ripened by a year or so in Amer- 
ica.” 


JAKE SHAMBERLAIN. 


66 


“Individuals need that cookery, as the race 
did” 

“ Yes ; I wish our social cuisine were a thought 
more scientific.” 

“ All in good time. We shall separate sauces 
by and by, and not compel beef, mutton, and 
turkey to submit to the same gravy.” 

“ Meanwhile some of my countrymen are so 
under-done, and some so over-done, that I have 
Lost my taste for them.” 

“ Such social dyspepsia is soon cured on the 
plains. You will go back with a healthy appe- 
tite. Did your English friend describe the lady 
of his love ? ” 

“No; it was evidently too stern a grief to talk 
about. He could keep up his spirits only by 
resolutely turning his back on the subject.” 

“ It must needs have been a weak heart or a 
mighty passion.” 

“ The latter. A brave fellow like Biddulph does 
not take to his heels from what he can overcome.” 

By this time we had reached camp. 

Horses first, self afterwards, is the law of the 
plains travel. A camp must have, — 

1. Water. 

2. Fodder. 

3. Fuel. 

Those are the necessities. Anything else is 
luxury. 


66 


JOHN BRENT. 


The mail party were a set ;f jolly roviglis. 
Jake Shamberlain was the type man. To en- 
counter such fellows is good healthy education. 
As useful in kind, but higher in degree, as going 
to a bear conversazione or a lion and tiger con- 
cert. Civilization mollifies the race. It is not 
well to have hard knocks and rough usage for 
mind or body eliminated from our training. 

We joined suppers with our new friends. Af- 
ter supper we sat smoking our pipes, and talking 
horse, Indians, bear-fights, scalping, and other 
brutal business, such as the world has not out- 
(Crown. 


CHAPTER VII. 


ENTER, THE BRUTES! 

The sun had just gone down. There was a 
red wrangle of angry vapors over the mounds 
of mountain westward. A brace of travellers 
from Salt Lake way rode up and lighted their 
camp fire near ours. More society in that lonely 
world. Two families, with two sets of Lares and 
Penates. 

Not attractive society. They were a sinister- 
looking couple of hounds. A lean wolfish and 
a fat bony dog. 

One was a rawboned, stringy chap, — as gaunt, 
unkempt, and cruel a Pike as ever pillaged the 
cabin, insulted the wife, and squirted tobacco over 
the dead body of a Free State settler in Kansas. 
The other was worse, because craftier. A lit- 
tle man, stockish, oily, and red in the face. A 
jaunty fellow, too, with a certain shabby air of 
coxcombry even in his travel-stained attire. 

They were well mounted, both. The long ruf- 
fian rode a sorrel, big and bony as himself, and 
equally above such accidents as food or no food. 


68 


JOHN BRENT 


The little villain’s mount was a red roan, a Flat* 
head horse, rather naggy, but perfectly hardy and 
wiry, — an animal that one would choose to do a 
thousand miles in twenty days, or a hundred be- 
tween sunrise and sunset. They had also two 
capital mules, packed very light. One was brand- 
ed, “ A. & A.” 

Distrust and disgust are infallible instincts. 
Men’s hearts and lives are written on their faces, 
to warn or charm. Never reject that divine or 
devilish record ! 

Brent read the strangers, shivered at me, and 
said, sotto voce , “ What a precious pair of cut- 
throats ! We must look sharp for our horses 
while they are about.” 

“ Yes,” returned I, in the same tone ; 44 they 
look to me like Sacramento gamblers, who have 
murdered somebody, and had to make tracks for 
their lives.” 

“ The Cassius of the pair is bad enough,” said 
rirent ; 44 but that oily little wretch sickens me. 
I can imagine him when he arrives at St. Louis, 
blossomed into a purple coat with velvet lappels, 
a brocaded waistcoat, diamond shirt-studs, or a 
flamboyant scarf pinned with a pinchbeck dog, and 
red-legged patent-leather boots, picking his teeth 
on the steps of the Planters’ House. Faugh ! I 
feel as if a snake were crawling over me, when 1 
look at him.” 


ENTER, THE BRUTES. 


69 


“ They are not very welcome neighbors to our 
Mends here.” 

“ No. Roughs abhor brutes as much as you 
or I do. Roughs are only nature ; brutes are 
sin. I do not like this brutal element coming in. 
It portends misfortune. You and I will inevita- 
bly come into collision with those fellows.” 

“ You take your hostile attitude at once, and 
without much reluctance.” 

“ You know something of my experience. I 
have had a struggle all my life with sin in one 
form or other, with brutality in one form or 
other. I have been lacerated so often from 
unwillingness to strike the first blow, that I have 
at last been forced into the offensive.” 

“You believe in flooring Apollyon before he 
floors you.” 

“ There must be somebody to do the merciless. 
It ’s not my business — the melting mood — in 
my present era.” 

“We are going off into generalities, apropos 
of those two brutes. What, 0 volunteer charm 
pion of virtue, dost thou propose in regard to 
them ? When will you challenge them to the 
ordeal, to prove themselves honest men and good 
fellows ? ” 

“ Aggression always comes from evil. They 
are losels , we are true knights. They will do 
some sneaking villany. You and I will there- 
upon up and at ’em.” 


TO 


JOHN BRENT. 


“ Odd fellow are you, with your premonitions ! v 

“ They are very vague, of course, but based on 
a magnetism which I have learnt to trust, after 
much discipline, because I refused to obey it. 
Look at that big brute, how he kicks and curses 
his mule ! ” 

“Perhaps he has stolen it, and is revenging 
his theft on its object. That brand ‘A. & A.’ 
may remind him what a thief he is.” 

“ Here comes the fat brother. He ’ll propose 
to camp with us.” 

“ It is quite natural he should, saint or sinner, 
— all the more if he is sinner. It must be terri- 
ble for a man who has ugly secrets to wake up at 
night, alone in bivouac, with a grisly dream, no 
human being near, and find the stars watching 
him keenly, or the great white, solemn moon pity- 
ing him, yet saying, with her inflexible look, that, 
moan and curse as he may, no remorse will save 
him from despair.” 

“ Yes,” said Brent, knocking the ashes out of 
his pipe ; “ night always seems to judge and sen- 
tence the day. A foul man, or a guilty man, so 
long as he intends to remain foul and guilty, 
dreads pure, quiet, orderly Nature.” 

The objectionable stranger came up to our 
camp-fire. 

“ Hello, men ! ” said he, with a familiar air, 
M it a fine night ” ; and meeting with no ro 


ENTER, THE BRUTES! 


71 


Bponse, he continued : “ But, I reckon, you don’t 
allow nothin’ else but fine nights in this section.” 

“ Bad company makes all nights bad,” says 
Jake Shamberlain, gruffly enough. 

“ Ay ; and good company betters the orneriest 
sort er weather. The more the merrier, eh ? ” 

“ Supposin’ its inore perarer wolves, or more 
rattlesnakes, or more horse-tliieving, scalpin 
(Jtes ! ” says Jake, unpropitiated. 

“ 0,” said the new-comer a little uneasily, 
“ I don’t mean sech. I mean jolly dogs, like me 
and my pardener. We allowed you ’d choose 
company in camp. We ’d like to stick our pegs 
in alongside of yourn, ef no gent liaint got 
nothin’ to say agin it.” 

“It ’s a free country,” Jake said, “ and looks 
pooty roomy round here. You ken camp whar 
you blame please, — off or on.” 

“ Well,” says the fellow, laying hold of this 
very slight encouragement, “ since you ’re agree- 
able, we ’ll fry our pork over your fire, and hev 
a smoke to better acquaintance.” 

“ He ain’t squimmidge,” said Jake to us, as 
the fellow walked off to call his comrade. “ He ’s 
bound to ring himself into this here party, who- 
ever says stickleback. He ’s one er them Alge- 
rines what don’t know a dark hin!\ till it begins 
to make motions, and kicks ’em out. Well, two 
more men, with two regiments’ allowance of 


JOHN BRENT. 


72 

shootin’ irons won’t do no harm in this Ingina 
country.” 

“ Well, boys ! ” said the unpleasant fatling, ap- 
proaching again. “ Here is my pardener, Sam 
Smith, from Sacramenter ; what he don’t know 
about a horse ain’t worth knowin’. My name is 
Jim Robinson. I ken sing a song, tell a story, 
or fling a card with any man, in town or out er 
town.” 

While the strangers cooked their supper, my 
friend and I lounged off apart upon the prairie. 
A few steps gave us a capital picture. The white 
wagon ; the horses feeding in the distance, a 
dusky group; the men picturesquely disposed 
about the fire, now glowing ruddy against the 
thickening night. A Gypsy scene. Literal “ Yie 
de Boh6me.” 

“ I am never bored,” said Brent to me, “ with 
the company or the talk of men like those, good 
or bad. Homo sum; nil humani , and so forth, 
— a sentiment of the late Plautus, now first 
quoted.” 

“You do not yet feel a reaction toward schol- 
arly society.” 

“ No ; this Homeric life, with its struggle 
against elements, which I can deify if I please, 
and against crude forces in man or nature, suits 
the youth of my manhood, my Achilles time. The 
world went through an epoch of just such life as 


ENTER, THE BRUTES! 


78 


we are leading. Every man must, to be com- 
plete and not conventional.” 

“ A man who wants to know his country and 
his age must clash with all the people and all 
the kinds of life in it. You and I have had the 
college, the salon , the club, the street, Europe, 
the Old World, and Yankeedom through and 
through ; when do you expect to outgrow Ish- 
mael, my Jonathan ? ” 

“ Whenever Destiny gives me the final acco- 
lade of merit, and names me Lover.” 

“ What ! have you never been that happy 
wretch ? ” 

“ Never. I have had transitory ideals. I have 
been enchanted by women willowy and women 
dumpy ; by the slight and colorless mind and 
body, by the tender and couleur de rose , and 
by the buxom and ruddy. I have adored Zo- 
beide and Hildegarde, Dolores and Dorothy Ann, 
imp and angel, sprite and fiend. I have had my 
little irritation of a foolish fancy, my sharp scourge 
of an unworthy passion. I am heart-whole still, 
and growing a little expectant of late.” 

“You are not cruising the plains for a lady- 
love ! It is not, 4 1 will wed a savage woman ’ ? 
It is not for a Pawnee squaw that you go clad in 
skins and disdain the barber ? ” 

> “ No. My business in Cosmos is not to be the 
father of half-breeds. But soberly, old fellow, I 

4 


74 


JOHN BRENT. 


need peace after a life driven into prematura 
foemanship. I need tranquillity to let my char- 
acter use my facts. I want the bitter drawn out 
of me, and the sweet fostered. I yearn to be a 
lover.” 

As he said this, we had approached the camp- 
fire. Jim Robinson, by this time quite at home, 
was making his accomplishments of use. He was 
debasing his audience with a vulgar song. The 
words and air jarred upon both of us. 

“Nil humani a me alienum puto , I repeat,” 
said Brent, “ but that foul stuff is not the voice 
of humanity. Let ’s go look at the horses. They 
do not belie their nobler nature, and are not in 
the line of degradation. I cannot harden myself 
not. to shrink from the brutal element wherever 
I find it; whether in two horse-thieves on the 
plains, or in a well-dressed reprobate of society 
at the club in New York.” 

“ Brutes in civilization are just as base, but 
not so blatant.” 

“ Old Pumps and the Don, here, are a gentler 
and more honorable pair than these strangers.” 

“ They are the gentlemen of their race.” 

“ It ’s not their cue to talk ; but if the gift of 
tongues should come to them, they would disdain 
all uncliivalric and discourteous words. They 
do now, with those brave eyes and scornful nos- 
trils, rebuke whatever is unmanly in men.” 


ENTER, THE BRUTES J 


76 


“Yes; they certainly look ready to co-operate 
in all knightly duties.” 

“ One of those, as I hinted before, is riding 
down caitiffs.” 

We left our horses, busy at their suppers, be- 
side the brawling river, and walked back to camp. 
It was a Caravaggio scene by the firelight. Jim 
Robinson had produced cards. The men of the 
mail party were intent over the game. Even Jake 
Shamberlain had easily forgotten his distrust of 
the strangers. The two suspects, whether with 
an eye to future games, or because they could 
not offend their comrades and protectors for this 
dangerous journey, were evidently playing fair. 
Robinson would sometimes exhibit a winning 
hand, and say, with an air of large liberality, 
“ Ye see, boys, I ked rake down yer dimes, ef I 
chose ; but this here is a game among friends. 
I ’m playin’ for pastime. I ’ve made my pile 
olreddy, and so ’s my pardener.” 

The gambler’s face and the gambler’s manner 
are the same all over the world. Always the 
same impassible watchfulness. Always the same 
bullying cruelty or feline cruelty. Always the 
same lurking triumph, and the same lurking 
sneer at the victim. The same quiet satisfaction 
that gamesters will be geese, and gamblers are 
deputed to pluck them ; the same suppressed 
chuckle over the efforts of the luckless to re- 


76 


JOHN BRENT. 


tnevo bad luck; the same calm confidence that 
the lucky player will by and by back the wrong 
card, the wrong color, or the wrong number, and 
the bank will take back its losses. What hard 
faces they wear! Wear, — for their faces seem 
masks merely, dropped only at stealthy moments. 
Always the same look and the same manner. 
Young and beautiful faces curdle into it. Wo- 
men’s even. I have seen women, the slaves of 
the hells their devils kept, whose faces would 
have been fair and young, if this ugly mask 
could but be torn away. All men and all wo- 
men who make prey of their fellows, who lie in 
wait to seize and dismember brothers and sisters, 
get this same relentless expression. It fixes it- 
self deepest on a gambler ; he must hold the same 
countenance from the first lamp-lighting until in- 
dignant dawn pales the sickly light of lamps, and 
the first morning air creeps in to stir the heavy- 
hearted atmosphere, and show that it is poison. 

“ I ’ve seen villains just like those two,” said 
Brent, “ in every hell in Europe and America. 
They always go in pairs ; a tiger and a snake ; a 
bully and a wheedler. 

“ Mind and matter. The old partnership, like 
yours and mine.” 

Next morning the two strangers were free and 
tccepted members of the party. They travelled 
9n with us without question. Smith the gaunt 


ENTER, THE BRUTES! 


77 


affected a rough frankness of manner. Robinson 
was low comedy. His head was packed with 
scurvy jokes and stories. He had a foul leer 
on his face whenever he was thinking his own 
thoughts. But either, if suddenly startled, 
showed the unmistakable look that announces 
worse crime than mere knavery. 

They tangled their names so that we perceived 
each was an alias hastily assumed. Smith com- 
pared six-shooters with me. I detected on his the 
name Murker, half erased. Once, too, Brent 
heard Murker, alias Smith, call his partner Lar- 
rap. 

“Larrap is appropriate,” said I, when Brent 
told me this ; “ just the name for him, as that 
unlucky mule branded ‘ A. & A.’ could testify.” 

44 The long ruffian studied my face, when he 
made that slip, to see if I had heard. He might 
as well have inspected the air for the mark of 
his traitorous syllables.” 

44 You claim that your phiz is so covered with 
hieroglyphs, inscriptions of fine feeling, that there 
is no room to write suspicions of other men’s 
villany ? ” 

44 A clean heart keeps a clean face. A guilty 
heart will announce itself at eyes and lips and 
cheeks, and by a thousand tremors of the nerves. 
I have no prejudices against the family Larrap. 
But when Larrap’s mate spoke the name, he 


78 


JOHN BRENT. 


looked at me as if he had been committing a mur 
der, and had by an irresistible impulse proclaimed 
the fact. Look at him now ! how he starts and 
half turns whenever one of our horses makes a 
clatter. He dares not quite look back. He 
knows there is something after him. ,, 

“ The dread of a vengeance, you think. That 
a blacker follower than 4 Atra cura post equitem .’ ” 

I tire of these unwholesome characters I am 
describing. But I did not put them into the 
story. They took their places themselves. I 
find that brutality interferes in most dramas and 
most lives. Brutality the male sin, disloyalty the 
female sin, — these two are always doing their 
best to baffle and blight heroism and purity. 
Often they succeed. Oftener they fail. And so 
the world exists, and is not annulled ; its history 
is the history of the struggle and the victory. 
This episode of my life is a brief of the worlds 
complete experience. 


CHAPTER VTXll. 


A MORMON CARAVAN. 

f Still, as we rode along, the same rich, tran 
quil days of October ; the air always potable 
gold, and every breath nepenthe. 

Early on one of the fairest of afternoons when 
all were fairest, we reached Fort Bridger. Bridger 
had been an old hunter, trapper, and by and by 
that forlorn hope of civilization, the holder of an 
Indian trading-post. The spot is better known 
now. It was there that that miserable bungle 
and blunder of an Administration more fool, if 
that be possible, than knave, — the Mormon Expe- 
dition in 1858, — took refuge, after its disasters on 
the Sweetwater. 

At the moment of our arrival, Bridgets Fort 
had just suffered capture. Its owner was miss- 
ing. The old fellow had deemed himself the 
squatter sovereign of that bleak and sere region. 
He had built an adobe mud fort, with a palisade, 
on a sweep of plain a degree less desert than the 
deserts hard by. That oasis was his oasis, so ho 
fondly hoped ; that mud fort, his mud fort ; those 


80 


JOHN BRENT. 


willows and alders, his thickets ; and that trade, 
his trade. 

But Bridger was one man, and he had power- 
ful neighbors. It was a case of “O si annulus 
iste!” — a Naboth’ s-vineyard case. The Mor- 
mons did not love the rugged mountaineer ; that 
worthy Gentile, in turn, thought the saints no 
better than so many of the ungodly. The Mor- 
mons coveted oasis, fort, thicket, and trade. 
They accused the old fellow of selling powder 
and ball to hostile Indians, — to Walker, chief of 
the Utes, a scion, no doubt, of the Hookey Walker 
branch of that family. Very likely he had done 
so. At all events, it was a good pretext. So, in 
the name of the Prophet, and Brigham, successor 
of the Prophet, the Latter-Day Saints had made 
a raid upon the post. Bridger escaped to the 
mountains. The captors occupied the Gentile’s 
property, and spoiled his goods. 

Jake Shamberlain told us this story, not with- 
out some sympathy for the exile. 

“ It ’s olluz so,” says Jake ; “ Paul plants, and 
Apollyon gets the increase. Not that Bridger ’a 
like Paul, any more ’n we ’re like Apollyon ; but 
we’re goan to have all the cider off his apple- 
trees.” 

“ I ’m sorry old Bridger has come to grief,” 
said Brent to me, as we rode over the plain to- 
ward the fort. “ He was a rough, but worth all 


A MORMON CARAVAN. 


81 


the Latter-Day Saints this side of Armageddon. 
Biddulph and I stayed a week with him last 
summer, when we came from the mountains 
about Luggernel Alley.” 

“ How far is Luggernel Alley from this 
spot ? ” 

“ Fifty miles or so to the south and east. I 
almost fancy I recognize it in that slight notch in 
the line of the blue sierra on the horizon. I 
wonder if I shall ever see it again ! If it were 
not so late, I should insist upon taking you there 
now. There is no such gorge in the world. And 
the springs, bold, liberal fountains, gushing out 
on a glittering greensward ! There are several 
of them, some boiling, some cold as ice ; and one, 
the Champagne Spring, wastes in the wilderness 
the most delicate, sparkling, exhilarating tipple 
that ever reddened a lip or freshened a brain.” 

“ Wait half a century ; then you and I will go 
there by rail, with our grandchildren, for draughts 
of the Fountain of Youth.” 

“ I should like to spend a honeymoon there, if 
I could find a wife plucky enough to cross the 
plains.” 

How well I remembered all this conversation 
afterwards, and not long afterwards ! 

We rode up to the fort. A dozen or so of 
somewhat rubbishy soldiers, the garrison, were 
lounging about. 

4 * W 


82 


JOHN BRENT. 


“ Will they expect a countersign,” asked 1, — 
u some slogan of their vulgarized Islamism ? ” 

“ Hardly ! ” replied Brent. “ Only one man 
in the world can care about assailing this dismal 
den. They need not be as ceremonious with 
strangers as the Dutchmen are at Elirenbreitstein 
and Verona.” 

Jake and the main party stopped at the fort. 
We rode on a quarter of a mile farther, and 
camped near a stream, where the grass was plen- 
teous. 

“Fulano and Pumps are in better condition 
than when we started,” said I, while we were 
staking them out for a long feed. “ The mus- 
tangs have had all the drudgery; these aristo- 
crats must be set to do their share soon.” 

“ They are in prime racing order. If we had 
had them in training for three months for a 
steeple-chase, or a flight, or a Sabine adventure, 
or a rescue, they could not be in better trim than 
this moment. I suppose their time to do their 
duty must be at hand, they seem so ardent for it.” 

We left our little caballada nibbling daintily at 
the sweetest spires of self-cured hay, and walked 
back to the fort. 

We stood there chatting with the garrison. 
Presently Brent’s quick eye caught some white 
spots far away on the slope of the prairie, like 
sails on the edge of a dreamy, sunny sea. 


A MORMON CARAVAN. 


“ Look ! ” said he, “ there comes a Salt Lake 
emigration train.” 

“ Yes,” said a Mormon of the garrison, “that ’s 
Elder Sizzum’s train. Their forerunner came in 
this morning to choose the camping-spot. There 
they be ! two hundred ox- teams, a thousand 
Saints, bound for the Promised Land.” 

He walked off to announce the arrival, whis- 
tling, “ Jordan is a hard road to travel.” 

I knew of Sizzum as the most soductive orator 
and foreign propagandist of Mormonism. He 
had been in England some time, very successful 
at the good work. The caravans we had already 
met were of his proselytes. He himself was 
coming on with the last train, the one now in 
view, and steering for Fort Bridger. 

As we stood watching, the lengthening file 
of white-hooded wagons crept slowly into sight. 
They came forward diagonally to our line of 
view, travelling apart at regular intervals, like 
the vessels of a well-ordered convoy. Now the 
whole fleet dipped into a long hollow, and pres- 
ently the leader rose slowly up over the ridge, 
and then slid over the slope, like a sail winging 
down the broad back of a surge. So they made 
their way along over the rolling sweep of the 
distance. 

“ Beautiful ! ” said Brent. “ See how the white 
canvas goldens in this rich October haze. Such 
scenes are the poetry of prairie life.” 


84 


JOHN BRENT. 


“ ] am too sorry for the ciews, to enjoy the 
Bunlit sails.” 

“ Yes, the safer their voyage, the surer their 
wreck in that gulf of superstition beyond the 
mountains.” 

“ Perhaps we waste sympathy. A man who 
has no more wit than to believe the trash they 
teach, has no business with anything but stupid 
drudgery. He will never suffer with discover- 
ing his faith to be a delusion.” 

“ You may say that of a grown man ; but 
think of the children, — to grow up in desecrated 
homes, and never know the close and tender 
influence of family nurture.” 

“ The state owes them an interference and an 
education.” 

“ So it does ; and the women protection from 
polygamy, whether they will or no.” 

“ Certainly. Polygamy makes woman a slave 
either by force, or influence stronger than force. 
The state exists only to secure the blessings of 
liberty to every soul within its borders, and so 
must free her.” 

“ Good logic, but not likely, quite yet, to guide 
legislation in our country.” 

“ This is Sizzum’s last train ; if the women 
here are no more fascinating than their shabby 
sisters of its forerunners, we shall carry oui 
hearts safe home.” 


A MORMON CARAVAN. 


86 


- x 1 cannot laugh about that,” said Brent. 
‘ My old dread revives, whenever 1 see one of 
these caravans, that theie may be in it some 
innocent girl too young to choose, carried off 
by a fanatic father or guardian. Think of the 
misery to a woman of any refinement ! ” 

“ But we have not seen any such.” 

Larrap and Murker here joined us, and, over- 
hearing the last remarks, began to speak in a 
very disgusting tone of the women we had seen 
in previous trains. 

“ I don’t wish to hear that kind of stuff,” said 
Brent, turning sternly upon Larrap. 

“ It ’s a free country, and I shall say what 1 
blame please,” the fellow said, with a grin. 

“ Then say it by yourself, and away from me.” 

“You ’re blame squimmidge,” said Larrap, 
and added a beastly remark. 

Brent caught him by the collar, and gave 
him a shake. 

Murker put his hand to a pistol and looked 
“ Murder, if I dared ! ” 

“ None of that,” said I, stepping before him. 

Jake Shamberlain, seeing the quarrel, came 
running up. “ Now, Brother Brent,” said Jake, 
“ no shindies in this here Garden of Paradise. 
If the gent has made a remark what teches you. 
apologies is in order, an he ’ll make all far and 
squar.” 


86 


JOHN BRENT. 


Brent gave the greasy man a fling. 

He went down. Then ho got up, with a 
trace of Bridger’s claim on his red shirt. 

“ Yer need n’t be so blame hash with a fel- 
ler,” said he. “I did n’t mean no offence.” 

“ Yery well. Learn to talk like a man, and 
not like a brute ! ” said Brent. 

The two men walked off together, with black 
looks. 

“ You look disappointed, Shamberlain,” said 
I. “ Did you expect a battle ? ” 

“ Ther ’s no fight in them fellers,” said Jake ; 
“ but ef they can serve you a mean trick they ’ll 
do it ; and they ’re ambushin’ now to look in the 
dixonary and see what it is. You ’d better keep 
the lariats of that black and that gray tied 
round your legs to-night, and every good horse- 
thief night while they ’re along. They may be 
jolly dogs, and let tlieii chances slide at cards, 
but my notion is they ’re layin’ low for bigger 
hauls.” 

“ Good advice, Jake ; and so we will.” 

By this time the head wagons of Elder Siz- 
zum’s train had crept down upon the level near 
us. For the length of a long mile behind, the 
serpentine line held its way. On the yellow 
rim of the world, with softened outlines against 
the hazy horizon, the rear wagons were still 
climbing up into view. The caravan lay like a 


A MORMON CARAVAN. 


87 


slowly writhing hydra over the land. Along 
its snaky bonds, where dragon-wings should 
be, were herds of cattle, plodding beside the 
“ trailing -footed ” teams, and little companies of 
Saints lounging leisurely toward their evening’s 
goal, their unbuilt hostelry on the plain. 

Presently the hydra became a two-headed mon- 
ster. The foremost wagon bent to the right, the 
second led off to the left. Each successor, as it 
came to the point of divergence, filed to the right 
or left alternately. The split creature expanded 
itself. The two wings moved on over a broad 
grassy level north of the fort, describing in reg- 
ular curve a great ellipse, a third of a mile long, 
half as much across. 

On either flank the march was timed and or- 
dered with the precision of practice. This same 
manoeuvre had been repeated every day of the 
long journey. Precisely as the foremost teams 
met at the upper end of the curve, the two hind- 
most were parting at the lower. The ellipse was 
complete. It locked itself top and bottom. The 
train came to a halt. Every wagon of the two 
hundred stopped close upon the heels of its file 
leader. 

A tall man, half pioneer, half deacon, in dress 
and mien, galloped up and down the ring. This 
was Sizzum, so the by-standers informed us. At 
a signal from him, the oxen, two and three yoke 


88 


JOHN BRENT. 


to a wagon, were unyoked, herded, And driven 
off to wash the dust from their protestant nostrils, 
and graze over the russet prairie. They huddled 
along, a great army, a thousand strong. Their 
brown flanks grew ruddy with the low sunshine. 
A cloud of golden dust rose and hung over them. 
The air was loud with their lowing. Relieved 
from their drags, the herd frisked away with 
unwieldy gambolling. We turned to the camp, 
that improvised city in the wilderness. 

Nothing could be more systematic than its ar- 
rangement. Order is welcome in the world. 
Order is only second to beauty. It is, indeed, 
the skeleton of beauty. Beauty seeks order, and 
becomes its raiment. Every great white-hooded, 
picturesque wagon of the Mormon caravan was 
in its place. The tongue of each rested on the 
axle of its forerunner, or was ranged upon the 
grass beneath. The ellipse became a fort and a 
corral. Within, the cattle could be safely herded. 
Marauding Redskins would gallop about in vain. 
Nothing stampedable there. Scalping Redskins, 
too, would be baffled. They could not make a 
dash through the camp, whisk off a scalp, and 
vanish untouched. March and encampment both 
had been marshalled with masterly skill. 

“ Sizziim,” Brent avowed to me, sotto voce , 
“ may be a blind guide with ditchward tenden- 
cies in faith. He certainly knows how to handle 


A MORMON CARAVAN. 


89 


his heretics in the field. I have seen cld tao 
ticians, Mar^chales and Feldzeugmeisters, in Eu- 
rope, with El Dorado on each shoulder, and 
Golconda on the left breast, who would have tied 
up that train into knots that none of them would 
be Alexander enough to cut.” 


CHAPTER IX. 


* SIZZUM AND HIS HERETICS. 

No sooner had this nomad town settled itself 
quietly for the night, than a town-meeting col- 
lected in the open of the amphitheatre. 

“ Now, brethren,” says Shamberlain to us, “ ef 
you want to hear exhortin’ as runs without stop- 
pin’, step up and listen to the Apossle of the 
Gentiles. Prehaps,” and here Jake winked per- 
ceptibly, “ you ’ll be teched, and want to jine, 
and prehaps you wont. Ef you ’re docyle you ’ll 
be teched, ef you ’re bulls of Bashan you wont 
be teched.” 

“ How did you happen to be converted your- 
self, Jake ? ” Brent asked. “ You ’ve never told 
me.” 

“ Why, you see I was naturally of a religious 
nater, and I ’ve tried ’em all, but I never fell foul 
of a religion that had real proved miracles, till 
I seed a man, born dumb, what was cured by 
the Prophet Joseph looking down his throat and 
tellin’ his palate to speak up, — and it did speak 
up, did that there palate, and went on talkin’ most 


SIZZUM AND HIS HERETICS. 


91 


oncommon. It’s onbeknown tongues it talks, 
suthin like gibberidge ; but Joseph said that was 
how the tongues sounded in the Apossles’ time 
to them as had n’t got the interruption of tongues. 
I struck my flag to that there miracle. I ’d seen 
’em gettin’ up the sham kind, when I was to the 
Italian convent, and I knowed the fourth-proof 
article. I may talk rough about this business, 
but Brother Brent knows I ’m honest about it.” 

Jake led us forward, and stationed us in posts 
of honor before the crowd of auditors. 

Presently Sizzum appeared. He had taken 
time to tone down the pioneer and develop the 
deacon in his style, and a very sleek personage 
he had made of himself. He was clean shaved ; 
clean shaving is a favorite coxcombry of the dea- 
con class. His long black hair, growing rank 
from a muddy skin, was sleekly put behind his 
ears. A large white blossom of cravat expanded 
under his nude, beefy chin, and he wore a black 
dress-coat, creased with its recent packing. Ex- 
cept that his pantaloons were thrust into boots 
with the maker’s name (Abel Cushing, Lynn, 
Mass.) stamped in gold on a scarlet morocco 
shield in front, he was in correct go-to-meetin’ 
costume, — a Chadband of the plains. 

Ho took his stand, and began to fulmine over 
the assemblage. His manner was coarse and 
overbearing, with intervals of oily persuasive- 


92 


JOHN BRENT. 


ness. He was a big, powerful man, without one 
atom of delicacy in him, — a fellow who never 
could take a flower or a gentle heart into his 
hand without crushing it by a brutal instinct. A 
creature with such an amorphous beak of a nose, 
such a heavy-lipped mouth, and such wilderness 
of jaw, could never perceive the fine savor of 
any delicate thing. Coarse joys were the only 
joys for such a body ; coarse emotions, the pleas- 
ures of force and domination, the only emotions 
crude enough for such a soul. 

His voice was as repulsive as his mien and 
manner. That badly modelled nose had an im- 
portant office in his oratory. Through it he 
hailed his auditors to open their hearts, as a 
canal-boatman hails the locks with a canal horn 
of bassoon calibre. But sometimes, when he 
wished to be seductive, his sentences took the 
channel of his mouth, and his great lips rolled 
the words over like fat morsels. Pah ! how the 
recollection of the fellow disgusts me ! And yet 
he had an unwholesome fascination, which com- 
pelled us to listen. I could easily understand 
how he might overbear feeble minds, and whee- 
dle those that loved flattery. He had some edu- 
cation. Travel had polished his base metal, so 
that it shone well enough to deceive the vulgar 
or the credulous. He did not often allow him- 
self the broad coarseness of his brother preachers 
in the church. 


S1ZZUM AND HIS HERETIC& 


93 


Shall I let him speak for himself? Does anj 
one wish to hear the inspirations of the last faith 
humanity has chosen for its guide ? 

No. Such travesty of true religion is very 
sorry comedy, very tragical farce. Vulgar rant 
and cant, and a muddle of texts and dogmas, are 
disgusting to hear, and would be weariness to 
repeat. 

Sizzum’s sermon suited his mixed character. 
He was Aaron and Joshua, high-priest and cap- 
tain combined. He made his discourse bulletin 
for to-day, general orders for to-morrow. He 
warned against the perils of disobedience.' He 
raved of the joys and privileges of Latter-Day 
Saintship on earth and in heaven. He heaped 
vindictive and truculent anathemas upon Gen- 
tiles. He gave his audience to understand that 
he held the keys of the kingdom ; if they yielded 
to him without question, they were safe in life 
and eternity ; if they murmured, they were cast 
into outer darkness. It was terrible to see the 
man’s despotism over his proselytes. A rumble 
of Amens from the crowd greeted alike every 
threat and every promise. 

Sizzum’s discourse lasted half an hour. He 
dismissed his audience with an Amen, and an in 
junction to keep closer to the train on the march 
to-morrow, and not be “ rabbling off to catch 
grasshoppers because they were bigger and hand 
eomer than the Lancashire kind.” 


94 


JOHN BRENT. 


“And this is one of the religions of the nine- 
teenth century, and such a man is its spokes- 
man,” said Brent to me, as the meeting broke 
up, and we strolled off alone to inspect the camp. 

“ It is a shame to all churches that they have 
not trained men to judge of evidence, and so 
rendered such a delusion impossible.” 

“ But Christianity tolerates, and ever reveres, 
myths and mythic histories ; and such tolera- 
tion and reverence offer premiums on the in- 
vention of new mythologies like this.” 

“ We, in our churches, teach that phenom- 
ena can add authority to truth ; we necessarily 
invite miracle-mongers, Joe Smiths, Pio Nonos, 
to produce miracles to sustain lies.” 

“ I suppose,” said Brent, “ that superstition 
must be the handmaid of religion, except in 
minds very holy, or very brave and thorough 
in study. By and by, when mankind is edu- 
cated to know that theology is a science, to be 
investigated and tested like a science, Mormon- 
ism and every like juggle will become forevei 
impossible.” 

“ Certainly ; false religions always pretend to 
a supernatural origin and a fresh batch of mys- 
teries. Let Christianity discard its mysteries, 
and impostors will have no educated credulity 
to aid them.” 

So Brent and I commented upon the Sizzum 


SIZZUM AND HIS HERETICS. 


95 


heresy and its mouthpiece. We abhorred the 
system, and were disgusted with its apostle, as 
a tempter and a knave. Yet we could not feel 
any close personal interest in the class he de- 
luded. They seemed too ignorant and doltish 
to need purer spiritual food. 

Bodily food had been prepared by the women 
while the men listened to Sizzum’s grace before 
meat. A fragrance of baking bread had per- 
vaded the air. A thousand slices of fat pork 
sizzled in two hundred frying-pans, and water 
boiled for two hundred coffee or tea pots. Saints 
cannot solely live on sermons. 

Brent and I walked about to survey the camp. 
We stopped wherever we found the emigrants 
sociable, and chatted with them. They were 
all eager to know how much length of journey 
remained. 

“ We ’re cornin’ to believe, some of us,” said 
an old crone, with a wrinkle for every grumble 
of her life, “ that we ’re to be forty year in the 
wilderness, like the old Izzerullites. I would n’t 
have come, Samwell, if I ’d known what you was 
bringin’ me to.” 

“ There ’s a many of us would n’t have come, 
mother,” rejoined “ Samwell,” a cowed man of 
anxious look, “ if we ’d known as much as we 
do now.” 

Samwell glanced sadly at his dirty, travel-worn 


96 


JOHN BRENT. 


children, at work at mud pies and dust vol-au 
vents. His dowdy wife broke off the colloquj 
by announcing, in a tone that she must have 
learned from a rattlesnake, that the loaf was 
baked, the bacon was fried, and supper should n’t 
wait for anybody’s talking. 

All the emigrants were English. Lancashire 
their accent and dialect announced, and Lan- 
cashire they told us was their home in the old 
step-mother country. 

Step-mother, indeed, to these her children ! 
No wonder that they had found life at home in- 
tolerable ! They were the poorest class of towns- 
people from the great manufacturing towns, — 
penny tradesmen, indoor craftsmen, factory oper- 
atives, — a puny, withered set of beings; hardly 
men, if man means strength ; hardly women, 
if woman means beauty. Their faces told of 
long years passed in the foul air of close shops, 
or work-rooms, or steamy, oily, flocculent mills. 
All work and no play had been their history. 
No holidays, no green grass, no flowers, no fresh- 
ness, — nothing but hard, ill-paid drudgery, with 
starvation standing over the task and scourging 
them on. There were children among them al- 
ready aged and wrinkled, ancient as the crone, 
Samwell’s mother, for any childish gayety they 
showed. Poor things! they had been for years 
their twelve, fourteen, sixteen hours at work in 


SIZZUM AND HIS HERETICS. 


97 


stifling mills, when they should have been turn 
bling in the hay, chasing butterflies, expanding 
to sunshine and open air. 

“We have not seen,” said Brent, “ one hearty 
John Bull, or buxom Betsy Bull, in the whole 
caravan.” 

“ They look as if husks and slops had been 
their meat and drink, instead of beef and beer.” 

“Beef and beer belong to fellows that have 
red in their cheeks and guffaws in their throats* 
not to these lean, pale, dreary wretches.” 

“ The saints’ robes seem as sorry as their per- 
sons,” said I. “ No watchman on the hill-tops of 
their Sion will hail, 4 Who are these in bright 
array ? ’ when they heave in sight ! ” 

“ They have a right to be way-worn, after their 
summer of plodding over these dusty wastes.” 

“ Here comes a group in gayer trim. See ! 
— actually flounces and parasols ! ” 

Several young women of the Blowsaiind order* 
dressed in very incongruous toggery of stained 
and faded silks, passed us. They seemed to be 
on a round of evening visits, and sheltered theit 
tanned faces against the October sunshine with 
ancient fringed parasols. Their costume had a 
queer effect in the camp of a Mormon caravan at 
Port Bridger. They were in good spirits, and 
went into little panics when they saw Brent in 
his Indian rig, and then into “ Lor me ! ” and 

5 o 


98 


JOHN BRENT. 


w Bless us ! ” when the supposed Pawnee was di» 
covered to bo a handsome pale-face. 

“Perhaps we waste sympathy,” said Brent, 
“ on these people. Why are not they better off 
here, and likely to be more comfortable in Utah 
than in the slums of Manchester ? ” 

“ Drudgery for drudgery, slavery for slavery, 
barren as the Salt Lake country is, and rough 
the lot of pioneers, I have no doubt they will be. 
But then the religion ! ” 

“ I do not defend that ; but what has England’s 
done for them to make them regret it ? Of what 
use to these poor proletaires have the cathedrals 
been, or the sweet country churches, or the quiet 
cloisters of Oxford and Cambridge ? I cannot 
wonder that they have given an easy belief to 
Mormonism, — an energetic, unscrupulous prop- 
agan dism, offering escape from poverty and social 
depression, offering acres for the mere trouble 
of occupying ; promising high thrones in heaven, 
and on earth also, if the saints will only gather, 
march back, and take possession of their old es- 
tates in Illinois and Missouri.” 

We had by this time approached the upper 
end of the ellipse. Sizzum, as quartermaster, 
had done his duty well. The great blue land- 
arks, each roofed with its hood of white canvas 
stretched on hoops, were in stout, serviceable oi> 
der, wheels, axles, and bodies. 


SIZZUM AND HIS HERETICS. 


99 


Within these nomad cottages order or ciiaoa 
reigned, according to the tenants. Some people 
seem only to know the value of rubbish. They 
guard old shoes, old hats, cracked mugs, battered 
tins, as articles of virtu. Some of the wagons 
were crowded with such cherished trash. Some 
had been lightened of such burdens by the way- 
side, and so were snug and orderly nestling- 
places ; but the rat’s-nests quite outnumbered 
the wren’s-nests. 

A small, neat wagon stood near the head of 
the train. We might have merely glanced at it, 
and passed by, as we had done elsewhere along 
the line ; but, as we approached, our attention 
was caught by Murker and Larrap. They were 
nosing about, prying into the wagon, from a lit- 
tle distance. When they caught sight of us, they 
turned and skulked away. 

“ What are those vermin about ? ” said Brent 

“ Selecting, perhaps, a Mormoness to kidnap 
to-night, or planning a burglary.” 

“ I hate to loathe any one as I loathe those 
fellows. I have known brutes enough in my 
life to have become hardened or indifferent by 
this time, but these freshen my disgust every 
time I see them.” 

“ I thought we had come to a crisis with them 
tliis afternoon, when you collared Larrap.” 

“ You remember my presentiments about them 


L. of C. 


100 


JOHN BRENT. 


the night they joined us. I am afraid they will 
yet serve us a shabby trick. Their ‘dixonary/ 
as Shamberlain called it, of rascality is an una- 
bridged edition.” 

“ Such carrion creatures should not be allowed 
about such a pretty cage.” 

“It is, indeed, a pretty cage. Some neater- 
handed Phyllis than we have seen has had the 
arranging of the household gear within.” 

“ Yes ; the mistress of this rolling mansion has 
not lost her domestic ambition. This is quite 
the model wagon of the train. Refinement does 
not disdain Sizzum’s pilgrims; as ecce signum 
here ! ” 

“ The pretty cage has its bird, — pretty too, 
perhaps. See ! there is some one behind that 
shawl screen at the back of the wagon.” 

“The bird has divined Murker and Larrap, 
and is hiding, probably.” 

“ Come ; we have stared long enough ; let u* 
ralk on.” 


CHAPTER X. 


“ELLEN! ELLEN!” 

We were turning away from the pretty cage* 
in order not to frighten the bird, pretty or not* 
when an oldish man, tending his fire at the far- 
ther side of the wagon, gave us “ Good evening ! n 

There is a small but ancient fraternity in the 
world, known as the Order of Gentlemen. It is 
a grand old order. A poet has said that Christ 
founded it; that he was “the first true gentle- 
man that ever lived.’ * 

I cannot but distinguish some personages of 
far-off antiquity as worthy members of this fel- 
lowship. I believe it coeval with man. But 
Christ stated the precept of the order, when he 
gave the whole moral law in two clauses, — 
Love to God, and Love to the neighbor. Who- 
ever has this precept so by heart that it shines 
through into his life, enters without question 
into the inner circles of the order. 

But to protect itself against pretenders, this 
brotherhood, like any other, has its formulas, 
its passwords, its shibboleths, even its uniform 


102 


JOHN BRENT. 


These are external symbols. With some, the 
symbol is greater than the thing signified. The 
thing signified, the principle, is so beautiful, that 
the outward sign is enough to glorify any char- 
acter. The demeanor of a gentleman — being 
art, the expression of an idea in form — can be- 
come property, like any art. It may be an heir- 
loom in an ancient house, like the portrait of the 
hero who gave a family name and fame, like the 
portrait of the maiden martyr or the faithful wife 
who made that name beloved, that fame poetry, 
to all ages. This precious inheritance, like any- 
thing fine and tender, has sometimes been treated 
with over care. Guardians have been so solici- 
tous that a neophyte should not lose his inherit- 
ed rank in the order of gentlemen, that they have 
forgotten to make a man of him. Culturing 
the flower, they have not thought to make the 
stalk sturdy, or even healthy. The demeanor 
of a gentleman may be possessed by a weakling, 
or even inherited by one whose heart is not wor- 
thy of his manners. 

The formulas of this order are not edited ; its 
passwords are not syllabled ; its uniform was never 
pictured in a fashion-plate, or so described that a 
snob could go to his tailor, and say, “ Make me 
the habit of a gentleman.” But the brothers 
know each other unerringly wherever they meet; 
W they of the inner shrine, gentlemen heart and 


ELLEN! ELLEN 1 ” 


103 

life ; be they of the outer court, gentlemen in 
feeling and demeanor. 

No disguise delays this recognition. No strange- 
ness of place and circumstances prevents it. The 
men meet. The magnetism passes between them. 
All is said without words. Gentleman knows gen- 
tleman by what we name instinct. But observe 
that this thing, instinct, is character in its finest, 
keenest, largest, and most concentrated action. 
It is the spirit’s touch. 

John Brent and I, not to be deemed intruders, 
were walking away from the neat wagon at the 
upper end of the Mormon camp, when an oldish 
man beside the wagon gave us “ Good evening.” 

w Good evening, gentlemen,” said the wan, 
gray-haired, shadowy man before us. 

And that was all. It was enough. We knew 
each other ; we him and he us. Men of the same 
order, and so brothers and friends. 

Here was improbability that made interest at 
once. Greater to us than to him. We were not 
out of place. He was, and in the wrong company. 

Brent and I looked at each other. We had 
half divined our new brother’s character at the 
first glance. 

How legible are some men ! All, indeed, that 
have had, or are to have, a history, are books in 
a wel^known tongue to trained decipherers. Bui 
some tragedies stare at us with such an earnest 


104 


JOHN BRENT. 


dreariness from helpless faces, that we read with 
one look. We turn away 6adly. We have com- 
prehended the whole history of past sorrow ; we 
prophesy the coming despair. 

I will not now anticipate the unfinished, mel- 
ancholy story we read in this new face. An 
Englishman, an unmistakable gentleman, and in 
a Mormon camp, — there was tragedy enough. 
Enough to whisper us both to depart, and not 
grieve ourselves with vain pity ; enough to im- 
peratively command us to stay and see whether 
we, as true knights, foes of wrong, succorers of 
feebleness, had any business here. The same 
instinct that revealed to us one of our order 
where he ought not to be, warned us that he 
might have claims on us, and we duties toward 
him. 

We returned his salutation. 

We were about to continue the conversation, 
when he opened a fresh page of the tragedy. He 
called, in a voice too sad to be querulous, — a 
flickering voice, never to be fed vigorous again 
by any lusty hope, — 

“Ellen! Ellen!” 

“ What, father dear ? ” 

“ The water boils. Please bring the tea, my 
child.” 

“Yes, father dear.” 

The answers came from within the wagon. 


ELLEN! ELLEN’ 


105 


rhey were the song of the bird whose nest we 
had approved. A sad song. A woman’s voice 
can tell a long history of sorrow in a single word. 
This wonderful instrument, our voice, alters its 
timbre with every note it yields, as the face 
changes with every look, until at last the domi- 
nant emotion is master, and gives quality to tone 
and character to expression. 

It was a sad, sweet voice that answered the old 
gentleman’s call. A lady’s voice, — the voice of 
a high-bred woman, delicate, distinct, self-pos-. 
6essed. That sound itself was tragedy in such 
a spot. No transitory disappointment or distress 
ever imprinted its mark so deeply upon a heart’s 
utterance. The sadness here had been life-long, 
had begun long ago, in the days when childhood 
should have gone thoughtless, or, if it noted the 
worth of its moments, should have known them 
as jubilee every one ; — a sadness so habitual that 
it had become the permanent atmosphere of the 
life. The voice announced the person, and com- 
manded all the tenderest sympathy brother-man 
can give to any sorrowful one in the sisterhood 
of woman. 

And yet this voice, that with so subtle a re vela 
tion gave us the key of the unseen lady’s history,, 
asked for no pity. There was no moan in it, and 
no plaint. Not even a murmur, nor any rebel 
bitterness or sourness for defeat. The undertone 
6 * 


<08 


JOHN BRENT 


was brave. If not hopeful, still resolute. No 
despair could come within sound of that sweet 
music of defiance. The tones that challenge 
Fate were subdued away ; but not the tones that 
calmly answer, “ No surrender,” to Fate’s un- 
timely paean. It was a happy thing to know 
that, sorrowful as the life might be, here was an 
impregnable soul. 

There was a manner of half command and 
half dependence in the father’s call to his daugh- 
ter, — a weak nature, still asserting the control 
it could not sustain over a stronger. And in her 
response an indulgence of this feeble attempt at 
authority. 

Does all this seem much to find in the few sim- 
ple words we had heard ? The analysis might 
be made infinitely more thorough. Eveiy look, 
tone, gesture of a man is a symbol of his com- 
plete nature. If we apply the microscope se- 
verely enough, we can discern the fine organism 
by which the soul sends itself out in every act 
of the being. And the more perfectly developed 
the creature, the more significant, and yet the 
more mysterious, is every habit, and every mo- 
tion mightier than habit, of body or soul. 

In an instant, the lady so sweetly heralded 
stepped from beneath the hood of the wagon, and 
sprang to the ground in more busy and cheerful 
guise than her voice had promised. 


ELLEN! ELLEN!” 


107 


Again the same subtle magnetism between her 
*nd us. We could not have been more convinced 
of her right to absolute respect and consideration 
if she had entered to us in the dusky light of a 
rich drawing-room, or if we had been presented 
in due form at a picnic of the grandest world, 
with far other scenery than this of a “ desart 
idle,” tenanted for the moment by a Mormon 
caravan. The lady, like her father, felt that we 
were gentlemen, and therefore would compre- 
hend her. She saluted us quietly. There was 
in her manner a tacit and involuntary protest 
against circumstances, just enough for dignity. 
A vulgar woman would have snatched up and 
put on clumsily a have-seen-better-days air. 
This lady knew herself, and knew that she could 
not be mistaken for other than she was. Her 
base background only made her nobility more 
salient. 

She did not need any such background, nor 
the contrast of the drudges and meretricious 
frights of the caravan. She could have borne 
full light without any shade. A woman fit to 
stand peer among the peerless. 

We could not be astonished at this apparition. 
We had divined her father rightly, as it after- 
ward proved. Her voice has already half dis- 
closed her character. Let her face continue the 
development. We had already heard her called 


108 


JOHN BRENT. 


© 


ay her Christian name, Ellen. That seemed to 
bring us, from the beginning, into a certain inti- 
macy with the woman as woman, sister, daugh- 
ter, and to subordinate the circumstances of the 
life, to be in future suggested by the social name, 
to the life itself. 

Ellen, then, the unknown lady of the Mormon 
caravan, was a high-bred beauty. Englishwomen 
generally lack the fine edge of such beauty as 
hers. She owed her dark fairness, perhaps, to 
a Sicilian bride, whom her Norman ancestor had 
pirated away from some old playground of Pros- 
erpine, and brought with him to England when 
he came there as conqueror. Her nose was not 
quite aquiline. 

Positive aquiline noses should be cut off. They 
are ugly ; they are immoral ; they are sensual ; 
they love money ; they enjoy others’ misery. 
The worst birds have hooked beaks ; and so the 
worst men, the eagles and vultures of the race. 
Cut off the beaks ; they betoken a cruel pounce, 
a greedy clutch, and a propensity to carrion. 
Save the exceptions, but extirpate the brood. 

This lady’s nose was sensitive and proud. It 
is well when a face has its share of pride in the 
nose. Then the lips can give themselves solely 
to sweetness and archness. Besides, pride, or, if 
the word is dreaded, a conscious and resolute 
personality, should be the characteristic of a fa 'e. 


“ELLEN! ELLEN!” 109 

The nose should express this quality. Aoove, the 
eyes may changefully flash intelligence ; below, 
the mouth may smile affection ; the cheeks may 
give balance and equability ; the chin may show 
the cloven dimple of a tender and many-sided, or 
the point of a single-hearted and concentrated 
nature ; the brow, a non-committal feature, may 
look wise or wiseacre ; but every one of them is 
only tributary to the nose, standing royally in the 
midst, and with dignity presiding over its way- 
ward realm. 

Halt ! My business is to describe a heroine, — 
not to discuss physiognomy, with her face for a 
type. 

As I said, her nose was sensitive and proud. 
There might have once been scorn in the curve 
of her nostril. Not now. Sorrow and pity had 
educated away the scorn, as they had the tones of 
challenge from her voice. Firmness, self-respect, 
latent indignation, remained untouched. A strong 
woman, whose power was intense and passionate. 
Calm, till the time came, and then flame. Be- 
ware of arousing her! Not that there was re- 
venge in her face. No ; no stab or poison there. 
But she was a woman to die by an act of will, 
rather than be wronged. She was one who could 
hold an insulter by a steady look, while she grew 
paler, paler, purer, purer, with a more unearthly 
pureness, until she had crushed the boiling blood 


110 


JOHN BRENT. 


back into her heart, and stood before the wretch 
white and chill as a statue, marble-dead. 

What a woman to meet in a Mormon caravan ! 
And yet how able to endure whatever a dastard 
Fate might send to crush her there! 

Her hair was caught back, and severely chided 
out of its wish to rebel and be as beautiful as it 
knew was its desert. It was tendril hair, black 
enough to show blackness against Fulano’s shoul- 
der. Chide her locks as she might, they still 
insisted upon flinging out here and there a slen- 
der curling token of their gracefulness, to prove 
what it might be if she would but let them have 
their sweet and wilful will. 

Her eyes were gray, with violet touches. Her 
eyebrows defined and square. If she had had 
passionate or pleading dark eyes, — the eyes that 
hardly repress their tears for sorrow or for joy, 
— and the temperament that such eyes reveal, 
she would long ago have fevered or wept herself 
to death. No woman could have looked at the 
disgusts of that life of hers through tears, and 
lived. The gray eyes meant steadiness, patience, 
hope without flinching, and jower to master fate, 
or if not to master, to defy. 

She was somewhat pale, thin, and sallow. 
Plodding wearily and drearily over those dusty 
wastes toward exile could not make her a merry 
Nut-Brown Maid. Only her thin, red lips proved 


ELLEN! ELLEN! 


Ill 


that there were still blushes lurking out of 
6ight. 

A mature woman ; beyond girlhood, body and 
soul. With all her grave demeanor, she could 
not keep down the wiles of gracefulness that ever 
bubbled to the surface. If she could but be her 
happy self, what a fair world she would suddenly 
create about her! 

She was dressed in rough gray cloth, as any 
lady might be for a journey. She was evidently 
one whose resolute neatness repels travel-stains. 
After the tawdry, draggled silks of the young 
women we had just seen, her simplicity was 
charmingly fresh. Could she and they be of 
the same race of beings ? They were apart as 
far as coarse from fine, as silvern from brazen. 
To see her here among this horde was a horror 
in itself. No horror the less, that she could 
uot blind herself to her position and her fate. 
•She could not fail to see what a bane was 
beauty here. That she had done so was evi- 
dent. She had essayed by severe plainness of 
dress to erase the lady from her appearance. A 
very idle attempt ! There she was, do what she 
would, her beauty triumphing over all the wrong 
she did to it for duty’s sake. 

All these observations I made with one glance. 
Description seems idle when one remembers how 
eyes can see at a flash what it took aeons to 
prepare for and a lifetime to form. 


112 


JOHN BRENT. 


Brent and I exchanged looks. This was the 
result of our fanciful presentiments. Here was 
visible the woman we had been dreading to 
find. It still seemed an impossible vision. I al- 
most believed that the old gentleman’s blanket 
would rise with him and his daughter, like the 
carpet of Fortunatus, and transport them sud- 
denly away, leaving us beside a Mormon wagon 
in Sizzum’s camp and in the presence of a frowzy 
family cooking a supper of pork. 

I looked again and again. It was all reaL 
There was the neat, comfortable wagon; there 
was the feeble, timid old gentleman, pottering 
about; there was this beautiful girl, busy with 
her tea, and smiling tenderly over he:* father. 


CHAPTER XI. 


FATHER AND DAUGHTER. 

“ Come, gentlemen,” said the father, in a lively 
way. “ We are all campaigners. Sit down and 
take a cup of tea with us. No ceremony. A 
la guerre , comme a la guerre. I cannot give 
you Sevres porcelain. I am afraid even my 
delf is a little cracked ; but we ’ll fancy it whole 
and painted with roses. Now plenty of tea, Ellen 
dear. Guests are too rare not to be welcomed 
with our very best. Besides, I expect Brother 
Sizzum, after his camp duties are over.” 

It was inexpressibly dreary, this feeble con- 
viviality. In the old gentleman’s heart it was 
plain that disappointment and despondency were 
the permanent tenants. His gayety seemed only 
a mockery, — a vain essay to delude himself 
into the thought that he could be happy even 
for a moment. His voice, even while he jested, 
was hollow and sorrowful. There was a trepi- 
dation in his manner, half hope, half fear, as 
if he dreaded that some one would presently 
announce to him a desperate disaster, or fancied 


114 


JOHN BRENT. 


that 60ine sudden piece of good luck was about 
to befall him, and he must be all attention lest 
it pass to another. Nothing of the anxiety of 
a guilty man about him, — of one who hears 
pursuit in the hum of a cricket or the buzz of 
a bee ; only the uneasiness of one flying for- 
ever from himself, and hoping that some chance 
bliss will hold his flight and give him a moment’s 
forgetfulness. 

We of course accepted the kindly invitation. 
Civilization was the novelty to us. Tea with a 
gentleman and lady was a privilege quite un 
heard of. We should both have been ready to 
devote ourselves to a woman far less charming 
than our hostess. But here was a pair — the 
beautiful daughter, the father astray — whom we 
must know more of. I felt myself taking a very 
tender interest in their welfare, revolving plans 
in my mind to learn their history, and, if it might 
be done, to persuade the father out of his delu- 
sion. 

“ Now, gentlemen,” said our friend, playing 
his part with mild gracefulness, like an accom- 
plished host ; “ sit down on the blankets. I can 
not give you grand arm-chairs, as I might have 
done once in Old England, and hope to do if you 
ever come to see me at my house in Deseret. 
But really we are forgetting something very im- 
pcrtant. We have not been formally introduced. 


FATHER AND DAUGHTER. 


115 


Bless me ! that will never do. Allow me gentle- 
men to present myself, Mr. Hugh Clitheroe, 
late of Clitheroe Hall, Clitheroe, Lancashire, — 
a good old name, you see. And this is my daugh- 
ter, Miss Ellen Clitheroe. These gentlemen, my 
dear, will take the liberty to present themselves 
to you.” 

“Mr. Richard Wade, late of California; Mr. 
John Brent, a roving Yankee. Pray let me aid 
you Miss Clitheroe.” 

Brent took the teakettle from her hand, and 
filled the teapot. This little domestic office 
opened the way to other civil services. 

It was like a masquerading scene. My hand- 
some friend and the elegant young lady bending 
together over four cracked cups and as many 
plates of coarse earthenware, spread upon a 
shawl, on the dry grass. The circle of wagons, 
the groups of Saints about their supper fires, 
the cattle and the fort in the distance, made a 
strangely unreal background to a woman whose 
proper place, for open air, was in the ancient 
avenue of some ancestral park, or standing on 
the terrace to receive groups of brilliant ladies 
coming up the lawn. But character is superior 
to circumstance, and Miss Clitheroe’s self-posses- 
sion controlled her scenery. Her place, wher- 
ever it was, became her right place. The prairie, 
and the wagons, and the rough accessories, gave 
force to her refinement. 


116 


JOHN BRENT. 


Mr. Clitheroe regarded the pair with a dream* 
pleasure. 

“ Quite patriarchal, is it not ? ” said he to me. 

I could fancy myself Laban, and my daughter 
Rachel. There is a trace of the Oriental in her 
looks. We only need camels, and this would be 
a scene worthy of the times of the Eastern patri- 
archs and the plains of the old Holy Land. We 
of the Latter Day Church think much of such 
associations ; more I suppose than you world’s 
people.” 

And here the old gentleman looked at me 
uneasily, as if he dreaded lest I should fling 
in a word to disturb his illusion, or perhaps ridi- 
cule his faith. 

“ I have often been reminded here of the land- 
scape of Palestine,” said I, “ and those bare re- 
gions of the Orient. Your friends in Utah, too* 
refresh the association by their choice of Biblical 
names.” 

“ Yes ; we love to recall those early days when 
Jehovah was near to his people, a chosen peo- 
ple, who suffered for faith’s sake, as we have 
done. In fact, our new faith and new revelation 
are only revivals and continuations of the old. 
Our founder and our prophets give us the doc- 
trines of the earliest Church, with a larger light 
and a surer confidence.” 

He said this with the manner of one who is 


FATHER AND DAUGHTER. 


11T 


repeating for the thousandth time a lesson, a 
formula which he must keep constantly before 
him, or its effect will be gone. In fact, his 
resolute assertion of his creed showed the weak 
belief. As he paused, he looked at me again, 
hoping, as I thought, that I would dispute or 
differ, and so he might talk against contradic- 
tion, a far less subtle enemy than doubt. As I 
did not immediately take up the discussion, he 
passed lightly, and with the air of one whose 
mind does not love to be consecutive, to another 
subject. 

“ Hunters, are you not ? ” said he, turning to 
Brent. “ I am astonished that more of you 
American gentlemen do not profit by this great 
buffalo-preserve and deer-park. We send you 
a good shot occasionally from England.” 

“ Yes,” said my friend. “ I had a capital shot, 
and capital fellow too for comrade, this summer, 
in the mountains. A countryman of yours, Sir 
Biron Biddulph. He was wretchedly out of 
sorts, poor fellow, when we started. Fresh air 
and bold life quite set him up. A month’s 
galloping with the buffalo, and a fortnight over 
the cliffs, after the big-horn, would 4 put a soul 
under the ribs of death.’ Biddulph left me to go 
home, a new man. I find that he has stayed in 
Utah, for more hunting, I suppose.” 

Brent was kneeling at Miss Clitheroe’s feet, 


118 


JOHN BRENT. 


holding a cup for her to fill. He turned toward 
her father as he spoke. At the name of Bid- 
dulph, I saw that her red lips’ promise of pos- 
sible blushes was no false one. 

“ Ah ! ” thought I ; “ here, perhaps, is the ro- 
mance of the Baronet’s history. No wonder he 
found England too narrow for him, if this noble 
woman would not smile ! Perhaps he has stopped 
in Utah to renew his suit, or volunteer his ser- 
vices. A strange drama ! with new elements of 
interest coming in.” 

I could not refrain from studying Miss Cli- 
theroe with some curiosity as I thought thus. 

She perceived my inquisitive look. She made 
some excuse, and stepped into the wagon. 

“ Biddulph ! ” said the father. “ Ellen dear, 
Mr. Brent knows our old neighbor, Biron Bid- 
dulph. 0, she has disappeared, ‘on hospitable 
thoughts intent.’ I shall be delighted to meet 
an old friend in Deseret. We knew him inti- 
mately at home in better days, — no ! in those 
days I blindly deemed better, before I was illu- 
mined with the glories of the new faith, and saw 
the New Jerusalem with eyes of hope.” 

Miss Clitheroe rejoined us. She had been ab- 
sent only a moment, but, as I could see, long 
enough for tears, and the repression of tears. I 
should have pitied her more ; but she seemed, in 
her stout-hearted womanhood, above pity, asking 


FATHER AND DAUGHTER. 


119 


no more than the sympathy the brave have al- 
ways ready for the sorrowful brave. 

Evidently to change the subject, she engaged 
Brent again in his tea-table offices. I looked at 
that passionate fellow with some anxiety. He 
was putting a large share of earnestness in his 
manner of holding cups and distributing hard- 
tack. Why so much fervor and devotion, my 
friend ? Seems to me I have seen cavaliers be- 
fore, aiding beauties with like ardor, on the car- 
pet, in the parlor, over the S&vres and the silver. 
And when I saw it, I thought, “ 0 cavalier ! 0 
beauty ! beware, or do not beware, just as you 
deem best, but know that there is peril! For 
love can improvise out of the steam of a teapot 
a romance as big and sudden and irrepressible as 
the Afreet that swelled from the casket by the 
6ea-shore in the Arabian story. 

We sat down upon the grass for our picnic. 
I should not invite the late Mr. Watteau, or even 
the extant Mr. Diaz, to paint us. The late Mr. 
Watteau’s heroes and heroines were silk and 
satin Arcadians ; they had valets de chambre 
and filles de chambre , and therefore could be 
not fully heroes and heroines, if proverbs be 
true. The present Mr. Diaz, too, charming and 
pretty as he is, has his place near parterres and 
terraces, within the reach of rake and broom. 
Mr. Horace Vemet is equally inadmissible, since 


120 


JOHN BRENT. 


that martial personage does not comprehend a 
desert, except with a foreground of blood, smoke, 
baggy red pantaloons, and mon General on a 
white horse giving the Legion of Honor to mon 
enfant on his last legs. But I must wait for 
some artist with the gayety of Mr. Watteau, the 
refinement of Mr. Diaz, and the soldierly force 
of Mr. Yernet, who can perceive the poetry of 
American caravan-life, and can get the heroine 
of our picnic at Fort Bridger to give him a sit- 
ting. Art is unwise not to perceive the materi- 
als it neglects in such scenes. 

Mr. Clitheroe grew more and more genial as 
we became better acquainted. He praised the 
sunshine and the climate. England had nothing 
like it, so our host asserted. The atmosphere of 
England crushed the body, as its moral atmos- 
phere repressed perfect freedom of thought and 
action. 

“ Yes, gentlemen,” said he, “ I have escaped 
at last into the region I have longed for. I mean 
to renew my youth in the Promised Land, — to 
have my life over again, with a store of the wis- 
dom of age.” 

Then he talked pleasantly of the incidents of 
his journey, — an impressible being, taking easily 
the color of the moment, like a child. He liked 
travel, he said ; it was dramatic action and scene- 
shifting, without the tragedy or the over-absorb- 


FATHER AND DAUGHTER. 


121 


mg interest of dramatic plot. He liked to have 
facts come to him without being laboriously 
sought for, as they do in travel. The eye, with- 
out trouble, took in whatever appeared, and at 
the end of the day a traveller found himself 
expanded and educated without knowing it. 
There was a fine luxury in this, for a mature 
man to learn again, just as a child does, and 
find his lessons play. He liked this novel, ad- 
venturous life. 

“ Think of it, sir,” he said, “ I have seen real 
Indians, splendid fellows, all in their war-paint ; 
just such as I used to read of with delight in 
your Mr. Fenimore’s tales. And these prai- 
ries too, — 1 seem to have visited them already 
in the work ; of your charming Mr. Irving, — a 
very pleasaj t author, very pleasant indeed, and 
quite reminding me of our best essayists ; though 
he has an American savor too. Mr. Irving, I 
think, did not come out so far as this. This 
region has never been described by any one 
with a poetic eye. My brethren in the Church 
of the Latter Day have their duties of stern 
apostleship ; they cannot turn aside to the right 
hand nor to the left. But when the Saints are 
gathered in. they will begin to see the artistic 
features of their land. Those Wind River Moun- 
tains — fine name, by the way — that I saw from 
the South Pass, — they seem to me quite an 


122 


JOHN BRENT. 


ideal Sierra. Their blue edges ai\d gleaming 
snow-peaks were great society for us as we 
came by. We are very fond of scenery, sir, my 
daughter and I, and this breadth of effect is ver) 
impressive after England. England, you know, 
sir, is tame, — a snug little place, but quite a 
prison for people of scope. Lancashire, my old 
home, is very pretty, but not grand ; quite the 
contrary. I have grown really quite tired of 
green grass, and well-kept lawns, and the shaved, 
beardless, effeminate look of my native country. 
This rough nature is masculine. It reminds 
me of the youth of the world. I like to be in 
the presence of strong forces. I am not afraid 
of the Orson feeling. Besides, in Lancashire, 
particularly, we never see the sun ; we see 
smoke ; we breathe smoke ; smoke spoils the fra- 
grance and darkens the hue of all our life. I 
hate chimneys, sir ; I have seen great fortunes 
go up them. I might perhaps tell you some- 
thing of my own experience in looking up a 
certain tall chimney not a hundred miles from 
Clitheroe, and seeing ancestral acres fly up it, 
and ancestral pictures and a splendid old man- 
sion all going off in smoke. But you are a 
stranger, and do not care about hearing my old 
gossip. Besides, what is the loss of houses and 
lands, if one finds the pearl of great price, 
and wins the prophet’s crown and the saint’s 
throne ? ” 


FATHER AND DAUGHTER 


123 


And here the gray-haired, pale, dreamy old 
gentleman paused, and a half-quenched fire glim- 
mered in his eye. His childish, fanatical am- 
bition stirred him, and he smiled with a look 
of triumph. 

I was silent in speechless pity. 

His daughter turned, and smiled with almost 
tearful tenderness upon her father. 

“ I have not heard you so animated for a long 
time, dear father,” she said. “ Mr. Wade seems 
quite to inspire you.” 

“ Yes, my dear, he has been talking on many 
very interesting topics.” 

I had really done nothing except to bow, and 
utter those civil monosyllables which are the 
“ Hear ! hear ! ” of conversation. 

If I had been silent, Brent had not. While 
the garrulous old gentleman was prattling on at 
full speed, I had heard all the time my friend’s 
low, melodious voice, as he talked to the lady. 
He was a trained artist in the fine art of sym- 
pathy. His own early sorrows had made him 
infinitely tender with all that suffer. To their 
hearts he came as one that had a right to enter, 
as one that knew their malady, and was com- 
manded to lay a gentle touch of soothing there. 
It is a great power to have known the worst 
and bitterest that can befall the human life, and 
yet not be hardened. No sufferer can resist 


124 


JOHN BRENT. 


the fine magnetism of a wise and unintrusrve pity. 
It is as mild and healing as music by night 
to fevered sleeplessness. 

The lady’s protective armor of sternness was 
presently thrown aside. She perceived that she 
need not wear it against a man who was brother 
to every desolate soul, — sisterly indeed, so del- 
icate was his comprehension of the wants of a 
woman’s nature. In fact, both father and daugh- 
ter, as soon as they discovered that we were 
ready to be their friends, met us frankly. It was 
easy to see, poor souls ! that it was long since 
they had found any one fit company for them, 
any one whose presence could excite the care- 
beguiling exhilaration of worthy society. They 
savored the aroma of good-breeding with *ppe* 
iite. 


CHAPTER XII. 


A GHOUL AT THE FEAST. 

Mr. Clitheroe’s thoughts loved to recur to hia 
native Lancashire, smoky though its air might 
be, and clean-shaved the grass of its lawns. I 
could not help believing that all the enthusiasm 
of this weak, gentle nature for the bleak plains 
and his pioneer life was a delusion. It would 
have been pretty talk for an after-dinner rhap- 
sody at the old mansion he had spoken of in 
England. There, as he paced with me, a guest, 
after pointing out the gables, wings, oriels, 
porches, that had clustered about the old build- 
ing age after age, he might have waved it away 
into a vision, and spoken with disdain of civil- 
ization, and with delight of the tent and the 
caravan. It had the flavor of Arcady, and the 
Golden Age, and the simple childhood of the 
world, when an enthusiastic Rousseauist Mar- 
quis talked in ’89 of the rights of man and uni- 
versal fraternity ; it would seem a crazy mockery 
if the same enthusiast had held the same strain 
a fetf years later, in the tumbril, as he rolled 


126 


JOHN BBENT. 


slowly along through cruel crowds to the guillo 
tine. 

Speaking of Lancashire, we fell upon the sub- 
ject of coal-mining. I was surprised to find that 
Mr. Clitheroe had a practical knowledge of that 
business. He talked for the first time without 
any of his dreamy, vague manner. His informa- 
tion was full and clear. He let daylight into 
those darksome pits. 

“I am a miner, too,” said I, “ but only of 
gold, a baser and less honorable substance than 
coal. Your account has a professional interest 
to me. You talk like an expert.” 

“ I ought to be. If I once saw half my for- 
tune fly up a factory chimney, I saw another 
half bury itself in a coal-pit. I have been bur- 
ied myself in one. I am not ashamed to say 
it ; I have made daily bread for myself and my 
daughter with pick, shovel, and barrow, in a dark 
coal-mine, in the same county where I was once 
the head of the ancient gentry, and where I saw 
the noblest in the land proud to break my bread 
and drink my wine. I am not ashamed of it. 
No, I glory that in that black cavern, where day 
light never looked, the brightness of the new 
faith found me, and showed the better paths 
where I now walk, and shall walk upward and 
onward until I reach the earthly Sion first, and 
then the heavenly.” 


A GHOUL AT THE FEAST 


127 


Again tho old gentleman’s eye kindled, and 
his chest expanded. What a tragic life he was 
hinting ! My heart yearned toward him. I had 
never known what it was to have the guidance 
and protection of a father. Mine died when I 
was a child. I longed to find a compensation 
for my own want, — and a bitter one it had 
sometimes been, — in being myself the guardian 
of this errant wayfarer, launched upon lethal 
currents. 

“ Your faith is as bright as ever, Brother 
Hugh,” said a rasping voice behind me, as Mr. 
Clitheroe was silent. “ You are an example to 
us all. The Church is highly blessed in such an 
earnest disciple.” 

Elder Sizzum was the speaker. He smiled in 
a wolfish fashion over the group, and took his 
seat beside the lady, like a privileged guest. 

“Ah, Brother Sizzum ! ” said Mr. Clitheroe, 
with a cheerless attempt at welcome, very differ- 
ent from the frank courtesy he had showed to 
ward us, “ we have been expecting you. Ellen 
dear, a cup of tea for our friend.” 

Miss Clitheroe rose to pour out tea for him. 
Sheep’s clothing instantly covered the apostle’s 
rather wolfish demeanor. He assumed a man- 
ner of gamesome, sheepish devotion. When he 
called her Sister Ellen, with a familiar, tender 
air, I saw painful blushes redden the lady’s 
cheeks. 


128 


JOHN BRENT 


Brent noticed the pain and the blush. H* 
looked away from the group toward the blue 
sierra far away to the south ; a hard expression 
came into his face, such as I had not seen there 
since the old days of his battling with Swerger, 
Trouble ahead ! 

Sizzum’s presence quenched the party. And, 
indeed, our late cheerfulness was untimely, at 
the best. It was mockery, — as if the Marquis 
should have sung merry chansons in the tum- 
bril. 

Miss Clitheroe at once grew cold and stern. 
Nothing could be more distant than her manner 
toward the saint. She treated him as a high- 
bred woman can treat a scrub, — sounding with 
every gesture, and measuring with every word, 
the ineffaceable gulf between them. Yet she 
was thoroughly civil as hostess. She even 
seemed to fight against herself to be friendly. 
But it was clear to a by-stander that she loathed 
the apostle. That she was not charmed with his 
society, even his coarse nature could not fail to 
discover. Anywhere else the scene would have 
been comic. Here he had the power. No es- 
cape ; no refuge. That thrust all comedy out ol 
the drama, and left only very hateful tragedy. 
Still it was a cruel semblance of comedy over a 
tragic under-plot, to see the Mormon’s cringing 
approaches, and that exquisite creature’s calm 


A GHOUL AT THE FEAST. 


12 » 


rebuffs. Sizzum felt himself pinned in his proper 
place, and writhed there, with an evil look, that 
said he was noting all and treasuring all against 
his day of vengeance. 

And the poor, feeble old father, — how all his 
geniality was blighted and withered away ! He 
was no more the master of revels at a festival, 
but the ruined man, with a bailiff in disguise at 
his dinner-table. Querulous tones murmured in 
his voice. The decayed gentleman disappeared ; 
the hapless fanatic took his place. Phrases of 
cant, and the peculiar Mormon slang and profan- 
ity, gave the color to his conversation. He ap- 
pealed to Sizzum constantly. He was at once the 
bigoted disciple and the cowed slave. * Toward his 
daughter his manner was sometimes timorously 
pleading, sometimes almost surly. Why could 
she not repress her disgust at the holy man, at 
least in the presence of strangers ? — that seemed 
to be his feeling ; and he strove to withdraw at- 
tention from her by an eager, trepidating attempt 
to please his master. In short, the vulgar, hard- 
beaded knave had this weak, lost gentleman thor- 
oughly in his power. Mr. Clitheroe was like a 
lamb whom the shepherd intends first to shear 
close, then to worry to death with curs, and at 
last to cut up into keebaubs. 

Brent and I kept aloof as much as we might. 
We should only have insulted the chosen vessel. 


130 


JOHN BBENT. 


and so Injured our friends. Indeed, our pres- 
ence seemed little welcome to Sizzum. He of 
course knew that the Gentiles saw through him, 
and despised him frankly. There is nothing 
more uneasy than a scrub hard at work to please 
a woman, while by-standers whom he feels to be 
his betters observe without interference. But 
we could not amuse ourselves with the scene ; it 
sickened us more and more. 

Sunset came speedily, — the delicious, dreamy 
sunset of October. In the tender regions of twi- 
light, where the sky, so mistily mellow, met the 
blue horizon, the western world became a world 
of happy hope. Could it be that wrong and sin 
dwelt there in that valley far away among the 
mountains ! Baseness where that glory rested I 
Foulness underneath that crescent moon ! Could 
it be that there was one unhappy, one impure 
heart within the cleansing, baptismal flow of that 
holy light of evening ! 

With sunset, Elder Sizzum, after some oily 
vulgarisms of compliment to the lady, walked 
off on camp duty. 

We also rose to take our leave. We must look 
ifter our horses. 

Mr. Clitheroe’s old manner returned the in- 
stant his spiritual guido left us. 

“ Pray come and see us again this evening 
gentlemen,” said he. 


A GHOUL AT THE FEAS^. 


131 


“We will certainly ,” said Brent, looking to- 
ward Miss Clitheroe for her invitation. 

It did not come. And I, from my position 
as Chorus, thought, “ She is wise not to en- 
courage in herself or my friend tils brief in- 
timacy. Mormons will not seem any the better 
company to-morrow for her relapse into the 
society of gentlemen to-night.” 

“ 0 yes ! ” said Mr. Clitheroe, interpreting 
Brent’s look ; “ my daughter will be charmed 
to see you. To tell you the truth, our breth- 
ren in the camp are worthy people ; we sym- 
pathize deeply in the faith; but they are not 
altogether in manners or education quite such 
as we have been sometimes accustomed to. It 
is one of the infamous wrongs of our English 
system of caste that it separates brother men, 
manners, language, thought, and life. We have 
as yet been able to have little except religious 
communion with our fellow-travellers toward 
the Promised Land, — except, of course, with 
Brother Sizzum, who is, as you see, quite a man 
of society, as well as an elect apostle of a great 
cause. We are quite selfish in asking you to re- 
peat your visit. Besides the welcome we should 
give you for yourselves, we welcome you also 
as a novelty.” And then he muttered, half 
to himself, “ God forgive me for speaking after 
tho flesh ! ” 


132 


JOHN BRENT. 


“ Come, Wade,” said my friend. And he 
griped my arm almost savagely. “ Until this 
evening then, Mr. Clitheroe.” 

As we moved away from the wagon, where 
the lady stood, so worn and sad, and yet so 
lovely, her poor father’s only guard and friend, 
we met Murker and Larrap. They were saun- 
tering about, prying into the wagons, inspect- 
ing the groups, making observations — that were 
perhaps only curiosity — with a base, guilty, bur- 
glarious look. 

“ He, he ! ” laughed Larrap, leering at Brent. 
“ I ’ll be switched ef you ’re not sharp. You 
know where to look for the pooty gals, blowed 
ef yer don’t ! ” 

“ Hold your tongue ! ” Brent made a spring 
at the fellow. 

u No offence ! no offence ! ” muttered he, shrink- 
ing back, with a cowardly, venomous look. 

“ Mind your business, and keep a civil tongue 
in your head, or there will be offence ! ” Brent 
turned and walked off in silence. Neither of 
us was yet ready to begin our talk on this 
evening’s meeting. 

Our horses, if not their masters, were quite 
ready for joyous conversation. They had en- 
countered no pang in the region of Fort Bridger. 
Grass in plenty was there, and they neighed 
us good evening in their most dulcet tones 


A GHOUL AT THE FEAST. 


139 


TVy frisked about, and, neighing and frisking, 
informed us that, in their opinion, the world 
was all right, — a perfectly jolly place, with abun- 
dance to eat, little to do, and everybody a 
friend. A capital world ! according to Pumps 
and Don Fulano. They felt no trouble, and 
saw none in store. Who would not be an ani 
mal and a horse, unless perchance an omnibus 
horse sprawling on the Russ pavement, or a fam- 
ily horse before a carryall, or in fact any horse 
in slavish position, as most horses are. 

We shifted our little caballada to fresh graz- 
ing-spots sheltered by a brake. We meant to 
camp there apart from the Mormon caravan. The 
talk of our horses had not cheered us. We still 
busied ourselves in silence. Presently, as I looked 
toward the train, I observed two figures in the 
distance lurking about Mr. Clitheroe’s wagon. 

“ See,” said I ; “ there are those two gamblers 
again. I don’t like such foul vultures hanging 
about that friendless dove. They look villains 
enough for any outrage.” 

“ But they are powerless here.” 

“In the presence of a steadier villany they 
are. That foul Sizzum is quite sure of his prey. 
John Brent, what can be done ? I do not know 
which I feel most bitterly for, the weary, deluded 
old gentleman, doubting his error, or that nobl« 
girl. Poor, friendless souls ! ” 


134 


JOHN BRENT 


*< Friendless ! ” said Brent. “ She has made 
a friend in me. And in you too, if you are the 
man I know.” 

“ But what can we do ? ” 

“ I will never say that we can do nothing un- 
til she repels our aid. If she wants help, she 
must have it.” 

“ Help ! how ? ” 

“ I will find a way or make one. Sidney’s 
thought is always good. You and I can never die 
in a better cause than this. And now, Dick, do 
not let us perplex ourselves with baseless talk 
and plans. We will see them again to-night, 
when Sizzum is not by. It cannot be that she 
is in sympathy with these wretches.” 

“ No ; that horrible ogre, Sizzum, is evidently 
disgusting to her; but here he has her in his 
den. It is stronger than any four walls in the 
world, — all this waste of desert.” 

“ Don’t speak of it ; you sicken me.” 

Something more in earnest than the tenderest 
pity here. I saw that the sudden doom of love 
had befallen my friend. In fact, I have never 
been quite sure but that the same would have 
been my fate, if I had not seen him a step in 
advance, and so checked myself. His time had 
come. Mine had not. Will it ever ? 

But love here was next to despair. That con- 
sciousness quickened the passion. A man must 


A GHOUL AT THE FEAST. 


135 


put his whole being into the cause, or the cause 
was hopeless, — must act intensely, as only a 
lover acts, or not at all. 

I determined not to perplex myself yet with 
schemes. I knew my friend’s bold genius and 
cool judgment. When he was ready to act, I 
would back him. 


CHAPTER XIII. 


JAKE SHAMBERL AIN’S BALL. 

IT grew dusk. Glimmering camp-fires marked 
the circle of the Mormon caravan. The wagons 
seemed each one, in the gloaming, a giant white 
nightcap of an ogress leaning over her coals. 
The world looked drowsy, and invited the pil- 
grims toward the Mecca of the new Thingamy 
to repose. They did not seem inclined to accept. 
The tramping and lowing cattle kept up a tumult 
like the noise of a far city. And presently an- 
other din! 

As Brent and I approached the fort, forth 
issued Jake Shamberlain, with a drummer on 
this side and a fifer on that. “ Pop goes the 
Weasel,” the fifer blew. A tuneless bang re- 
sounded from the drum. If there was one thing 
these rival melodists scorned, time was that 
one thing. They might have been beating and 
blowing with the eight thousand miles of the 
globe’s diameter between them, instead of Jake 
Shamberlain’s person, for any considerate Dn the; 
showed to each other. 


JAKE SHAMBERLAIN’S BALL. 


137 


Jake, seeing us, backed out from between his 
orchestra, who continued on, beating and blowing 
in measureless content. 

“We ’re going to give a ball, gentlemen, and 
request the honor of your company in ten min- 
utes, precisely. Kids not allowed on account 
of popular prejudice. Red-flannel shirts and 
boots with yaller tops is rayther the go fur 
dress.” 

“ A ball, Jake ! Where ? ” 

“ Why, in that rusty hole of old Bridgets. 
Some of them John Bulls has got their fiddles 
along. I allowed ’t would pay to scare up a 
dance. Guess them gals wont be the wus fur 
a break-down or an old-fashioned hornpiper. 
They hain’t seen much game along back, ef 
their looks tells the story. I never seed sech a 
down-heel lot.” 

Jake ran off after his music. We heard them, 
still disdaining time, march around the camp 
announcing the fandango. 

“ This helps us,” said Brent. “ Our friends, 
of course, will not join the riot. When the 
Mormons are fairly engaged, we will make our 
visit.” 

“ It is a good night for a gallop,” said I. 

He nodded, but said nothing. 

Presently Jake, still supported by his pair of 
melodists, reappeared. A straggling procession 


188 


JOHN BRENT. 


of Saints followed him. They trooped into th« 
enclosure, a motley throng indeed. Even that 
dry husk of music, hardly even cadence, had put 
some spirits into them. Noise, per se , is not 
without virtue; it means life. Sliamberlain’s 
guests came together, laughing and talking. 
Their laughter was not liquid. But swallow- 
ing prairie-dust does not instruct in dulcet 
tones. Rather wrinkled merriment; but still 
better than no merriment at all. 

We entered with the throng. Within was a 
bizarre spectacle. A strange night-scene for a 
rough-handed Flemish painter of low life to 
portray. 

The palisades of old Bridgets Malakoff en- 
closed a space of a hundred feet square. A 
cattle-shed, house, and trading-shop surrounded 
three sides of the square. The rest was open 
court, paved with clod, the native carpet of the 
region. Adobes, crumbling as the most straw- 
less bricks ever moulded by a grumbling He- 
brew with an Egyptian taskmaster, were the 
principal material of Bridger’s messuage. The 
cattle on Mr. Mechi’s model farm would have 
whisked their tails and turned away in utter 
contempt from these inelegant accommodations. 
No high-minded pig would have consented to 
wallow there. The khan of Cheronaea, ab- 
horred of Grecian travellers, is a sweeter place. 


JAKE SHAMBERL AIN’ S BALL. 


139 


The khan of Tiberias, terror of pilgrims, is a 
cleaner refuge. Bridger’s Fort was as musty and 
infragrant a caravansary as any of those dirty 
cloisters of the Orient, where the disillusioned 
howadji sinks into the arms of that misery’s bed- 
fellow, the King of the Fleas, --- which kangaroo- 
legged caliph, let me say, was himself, or in 
the person of a vigorous vizier, on the spot at 
the Fort, entertaining us strangers according to 
his royal notions of hospitality. 

Into this Court of Dirt thronged the Latter- 
Day Saints, in raiment also in its latter day. 

“ The ragamuffin brigade,” whispered I to 
Brent. “ Jake Shamberlain’s red-flannel shirts 
and yaller-topped boots would be better than 
this seediness of the furbelowed nymphs and 
ole clo’ swains. Evidently suits of full dress are 
not to be hired at a pinch on the boulevards 
of Sizzumville.” 

Brent made no answer, and surveyed the 
throng anxiously. 

“ They have not come, — the father and daugh- 
ter,” he said. “ I cannot think of the others 
now.” 

“ Shall we go to them ? ” 

“ Not yet. Sizzum sees us and will suspect.” 

We stood by regarding, too much concerned 
for our new friends to feel thoroughly the humof 
of the scene. But it made its impression 


140 


JOHN BRENT. 


For lights at the Shamberlain ball, instead 
<of the gas and wax of civilization, a fire blazed 
in one corner of the court, and sundry dips 
of unmitigated tallow, with their perfume un 
diluted, flared from perches against the wall. 
Overhead, up in the still, clear sky, the bare- 
faced stars stared at the spectacle, and shook 
their cheeks over the laughable manoeuvres of 
terrestrials. 

The mundane lights, fire and dips, flashed 
and glimmered ; the skylights twinkled merrily ; 
the guests were assembled ; the ball waited to 
begin. 

Jake Shamberlain, the master of ceremonies, 
cleared, a space in the middle, and “ called for 
his fiddlers fhree.” 

A board was laid across two barrels, and upon 
it Jake arrayed his orchestra, with Brother Bot- 
tery, so called, for leader. Twang went the fid- 
dles. “ Pardners for a kerdrille ! ” cried Jake. 

Sizzum led off the ball with one of the Blow- 
salinds before mentioned. Dancing is enjoined 
in the Latter-Day Church. They cite Jephthah’s 
daughter and David dancing by the ark as good 
Scriptural authority for the custom. 

“Right and left!” cried Jake Shamberlain. 
“Forrud the gent! The lady forrud! Forrud 
the hull squad. Jerk pardners! Scrape away 
Bottery ! Kick out and no walkin’ ! Prance in 


JAKE SHAMBERLAIN’S BALL. 


141 


gals! Lamm ahead, boys! Time, Time! All 
hands round ! Catch a gal and spin her ! Well, 
that was jest as harnsome a kerdrille as ever I 
seed.” 

And so on with another quadrille, minuet, 
and quadrille again. But the subsequent dances 
were not so orderly as the first. Filled with noise 
and romping, they frequently ended in wild dis- 
order. The figures tangled themselves into a 
labyrinth, and the music, drowned by the tumult, 
ceased to be a clew of escape. Nor could Jake’s 
voice, half suffocated by the dust, be heard above 
the din, until, having hushed his orchestra, he 
had called “ Halt ! ” a dozen times. 

In the intervals between the dances we observed 
Larrap distributing whiskey to the better class of 
the emigrants. Sizzum did not disdain to accept 
the hospitality of the stranger. Old Bridger’s 
liquid stores, now Mormon property, and for sale 
at the price of Johannisberger, diminished fast 
on this festal night. 

“ Shall we go ? ” whispered I to Brent, after a 
while. 

“ Not quite yet. Old Bottery announces that 
he is going to play a polka. Fancy a polka here ! 
That will engage Sizzum after his potations, so 
that he will forget our friends.” 

u Now, brethren and saints,” cried Jake, “ at 
tention for the polky ! Pipe up, Bottery ! ” 


142 


JOHN BRENT. 


Evidently not the first time that this Strauss of 
some Manchester casino had played the very rol- 
licking polka he now rattled off from his strings. 
IIow queerly ignoble those strident notes sounded 
in the silence of night in the great wilderness. 
For loud as was the uproar in the court, over- 
head were the stars, quiet and amazed, and, with- 
out, the great, still prairie protested against the 
discordant tumult. Some barbaric harmony, wild 
and thrilling, poured forth from strong-lunged 
brass, or a strain like that of the horns in Der 
Freischutz, would have chimed with the spirit of 
the desert. But Bottery’s mean twang suited 
better the bastard civilization that had invaded 
this station of the banished pioneer. 

•At the sound of the creaking polka, a youth, 
pale and unwholesome as a tailor’s apprentice, 
led out a sister saint. Others followed. Some 
danced teetotum fashion. Others bounced clum- 
sily about. Around them all stood an applaud- 
ing circle. The fiddles scraped ; the dust flew, 
Sizzum and Larrap, two bad elements in combi- 
nation, stood together, cheering the dancers. 

“ Come,” said Brent, “ let us get into purer 
air and among nobler creatures. How little we 
thought,” he continued, “ when we were speak- 
ing of such scenes and people as we have just 
left as a possible background, what figures would 
stand in the foreground ! ” 


JAKE SHAMBERLAIN’S BALL. 


143 


“ I am glad to be out of that noisy rabble,” 
said I, as we passed from the gate. “ The stars 
seem to look disdainfully on them. I cannot be 
entertained by that low comedy, with tragedy 
sitting beside our friends’ wagon.” 

“The stars,” said Brent, bitterly, “are cold 
and cruel as destiny. There is heaven overhead, 
pretending to be calming and benignant, and giv- 
ing no help, while I am thinking in agony what 
can be done to save from any touch of shame or 
deeper sorrow that noble daughter.” 

“ It is a fine night for a gallop,” I repeated. 

“ There they are. We must keep them out of 
the fort, Wade. If you love me, detain the old 
man in talk for half an hour.” 

“ Certainly ; half a century, if it will do an y 
good.” 

Mr. Clitheroe and his daughter were walking 
slowly toward the fort. He appealed to u» as 
we approached. 

“I am urging my daughter to join in the 
amusements of the evening,” said he. “You 
know, my dear, that many of our old Lancashire 
neighbors still would be pleased to see you a 
lady patroness of their innocent sports, and lend- 
ing your countenance to their healthy hilarity. 
A little gayety will do you good, I am sure. This 
ball may not be elegant ; but it will be cheerful, 
and of course conducted with great propriety, 


144 


JOHN BRENT. 


since Brother Sizzum is present. I am afraid he 
will miss us, and be offended. That must not 
be, Ellen dear. We must not offend Brother Siz- 
zum in any way whatever. We must consider 
that his wishes are sovereign ; for is he not the 
chosen apostle ? ” 

Brent and I could both have wept to hear this 
crazy, senile stuff. 

“ Pray, father dear,” said Miss Clitheroe, “ do 
not insist upon it. We shall both be wearied 
out, if we are up late after our day’s march.” 

It was clearly out of tenderness to him that 
she avoided the real objections she must have to 
such a scene. 

“ It is quite too noisy and dusty for Miss Cli- 
theroe in the fort,” said I, and I took his arm. 
“ Come, sir, let us walk about and have a chat 
in the open air.” 

I led him off, poor old gentleman, facile un- 
der my resolute control. All he had long ago 
needed was a firm man friend to take him in 
hand and be his despot ; but the weaker he was, 
the less he could be subject to his daughter. 
It is the feeble, unmasculine men who fight 
most petulantly against the influence and power 
of women. 

“ Well, Mr. Wade,” said he, “perhaps you are 
right. We have only to fancy this the terrace 
outside the chateau, and it is as much according 


JAKE SHAMBERL AIN’S BALL- 14i* 

to rule to promenade here, as to stifle in the ball- 
room. You are very kind, gentlemen, both, to 
prefer our society to the entertainment inside. 
Certainly Brother Bottery’s violin is not like one 
of our modern bands ; but when I was your age 
I could dance to anything and anywhere. I 
suppose young men see so much more of the 
world now, that they outgrow those fancies 
sooner.” 

So we walked on, away from the harsh sounds 
of the ball. Brent dropped behind, talking ear- 
nestly with the lady. How sibylline she looked 
in that dim starlight! How Cassandra-like, — 
as one dreams that heroic and unflinching propfer 
eiess of ills unheeded or disdained ! 


CHAPTER Xif. 


HUGH CLITHEROE. 

Mb. Clitheboe grew more and more communi 
cative, as we wandered about over the open. 1 
drew from him, or rather, with few words of 
guidance now and then, let him impart, his 
history. He seemed to feel that he had an ex- 
planation to offer. Men whose life has been er- 
ror and catastrophe rarely have much pride of 
reticence. Whatever friendly person will hear 
their apology can hear it. That form of more 
lamentable error called Guilt is shyer of the 
confessional; but it also feels its need of tell- 
ing to brother man why it was born in the heart 
in the form of some small sin. 

Again Mr. Clitheroe talked of the scenes of 
his youth *nd prosperity. He “ bubbled of green 
fields,” and parks, and great country-houses, and 
rural life. So he went on to talk of himself, and, 
leaving certain blanks, which I afterward found 
the means of filling, told me his story. A sad 
story ! A pitiful story ! Sadder and more pitiful 
to me because a filial feeling toward this hapless 


HUGH CLITHEBOE. 


147 


gentleman was all the while growing stronger in 
my heart. I have already said that I was father 
less from infancy. This has left a great want in 
my life. I cannot find complete compensation 
for the lack of a father’s love in my premature 
manhood and my toughening against the world 
too young. I yearned greatly toward the feeble 
old man, my companion in that night walk on 
the plain of Fort Bridger. I longed to do by 
him the duties of sonship ; as, indeed, having no 
such duties, I have often longed when I found 
age weak and weary. And as I began to feel 
son-like toward the father, a sentiment simply 
brotherly took its place in my heart for the 
daughter, whose love my friend, I believe, was 
seeking. 

A sad history was Mr. Clitheroe’s. He was a 
prosperous gentleman once, of one of the ancient 
families of his country. 

“ We belong,” he said, “ to the oldest gentry 
of England. We have been living at Clitheroe 
Hall, and where the Hall now stands, for cen- 
turies. Our family history goes back into the 
pre-historic times. We have never been very 
famous; we have always sustained our dignity. 
We might have had a dozen peerages ; but we 
were too much on the side of liberty, of free 
speech and free thought, to act with the power# 
that be. 


148 


JOHN BRENT. 


“ There was never a time, until my day, when 
one of us was not in Parliament for Clitlieroe 
Clitheroe had two members, and one of the old 
family that gave its name to the town, and got 
for it its franchises, was always chosen without 
contest. 

“ It is a lovely region, sir, where the town, of 
Clitheroe and the old manor-house of my family 
stand, — the fairest part of Lancashire. If you 
have only seen, as you say, the flat country 
about Liverpool and Manchester, you do not 
know at all what Lancashire can do in scenery. 
Why, there is Pendle Hill, — it might better be 
called a mountain, — Pendle Hill rises almost at 
my door-step, at the door of Clitheroe Hall. 
Pendle Hill, sir, is eighteen hundred and odd 
feet high. And a beautiful hill it is. I talked 
of the Wind River Mountains this afternoon ; 
they are very fine ; but I never should have 
learned to love heights, if my boyhood had not 
been trained by the presence of Pendle Hill. 

“ And there is the Ribble, too. A lovely river, 
coming from the hills ; — such a stream as I have 
not seen on this continent. I do not wish to 
make harsh comparisons, but your Mississippi 
and Missouri are more like ditches than rivers, 
and as to the Platte, why, sir, it seems to me 
no better than a chain of mud-pools. But the 
Ribble is quite another thing. I suppose I love 


HUGH CUTHEROK 


149 


it more because I have dabbled in it a boy, and 
bathed in it a man, and have seen it flow on 
always a friend, whether I was rich or poor. 
Nature, sir, does not look coldly on a poor man, 
as humanity does. The river Ribble and Pen- 
die Hill have been faithful to me, — they and my 
dear Ellen, always. 

“ Perhaps I tire you with this chat,” he said. 

“0 no ! ” replied I. “ I should be a poor 
American if I did not love to hear of Mother 
England everywhere and always.” 

“ I almost fear to talk about home — our old 
home, I mean — to my dear child. She might 
grow a little homesick, you know. And how 
could she understand, so young and a woman 
too, that duty makes exile needful ? Of course 
I do not mean to suggest that we deem our new 
home in the Promised Land an exile.” 

And here he again gave the same anxious look 
I had before observed; as if he dreaded that 
I had the power to dissolve an unsubstantial 
illusion. 

“I wish I had thought,” he continued, “to 
show you, when you were at tea, a picture of 
Clitheroe Hall I have. It is my daughter Ellen’s 
work. She has a genius for art, really a genius. 
We have been living in a cottage near there, 
where she could see the Hall from her window, — 
dear old place ! — and she has made a capital 
drawing of it.” 


150 


JOHN BRENT. 


“ You had left it?” I asked. He nad paused, 
commanded by his melancholy recollections. 

“ 0 yes ! Did I not tell you about my losses ! 
I was a rich man and prosperous once. I kept 
open house, sir, in my wife’s lifetime. She was 
a great beauty. My dear Ellen is like her, but 
6he has no beauty, — a good girl and daughter, 
though, like all young people, she has a juvenile 
wish to govern, — but no beauty. Perhaps she 
will grow handsome when we grow rich again.” 

“ Few women are so attractive as Miss Cli- 
theroe,” I said, baldly enough. 

“ I have tried to be a good father to her, sir. 
She should have had diamonds and pearls, and 
everything that young ladies want, if I had suc- 
ceeded. But you ought to have seen Clitlieroe 
Hall, sir, in its best days. Such oaks as I had 
in my park ! One of those oaks is noticed in 
Evelyn’s Silva. One day, a great many years 
ago, I found a young man sitting under that 
oak writing verses. I was hospitable to him, and 
gave him luncheon, which he ate with very good 
appetite, if he was a poet. I did not ask his 
name ; but not three months after I received 
a volume of poems, with a sonnet among them, 
really very well done, very well done indeed, 
inscribed to the Clitlieroe Oak. The volume, 
sir, was by Mr. Wordsworth, quite one of our 
best poets, in his way, the founder of a ne* 
school ” 


HUGH CLITHEROE. 


151 


,4 A very pleasant incident!” 

‘‘Yes indeed. The poet was fortunate, was 
he not ? But if you are fond of pictures, 1 
should have liked to show you my Vandykes. 
We had the famous Clitheroe Beauty, an earl’s 
daughter, maid of honor to Queen Henrietta 
Maria. She chose plain Hugh Clitheroe before 
all the noblemen of the court; — we Clitheroes 
have always been fortunate in that way. I said 
plain Hugh, but he was as handsome a cavalier 
as ever wore rapier. He might have been an 
earl himself, but he took the part of liberty, and 
was killed on the Parliament side at Edgemoor. 
I had his portrait too, a Vandyke, and one of 
the best pictures he ever painted, as I believe is 
agreed by connoisseurs. You should have seen 
the white horse, sir, in that picture, — full of 
gentleness and spirit, and worthy the handsome 
cavalier just ready to mount him.” 

As the old gentleman talked of his heroic 
ancestor, a name not unknown to history, he 
revived a little, and I saw an evanescent look 
of his daughter’s vigor in his eye. It faded 
instantly ; he sighed, and went on. 

“ I should almost have liked to live in those 
days. It is easier to die for a holy cause than 
to find one’s way along through life. I have 
found it pretty hard, sir, — pretty hard, — an$ 
J hope my day of peace is nearly come.” 


152 


JOHN BRENT. 


How could I shatter his delusion, and tliundei 
In his ear that this hope was a lie ? 

“ I had a happy time of it,” he continued, 
“ till after my Ellen’s birth, and I ought to ba 
thankful for that. I had my dear wife and hosti 
of friends, — so I thought them. To be sure 
I spent too much money, and sometimes had 
rather too gay an evening over the claret at 
my old oak dining-table. But that was harm 
less pleasure, sir. I was always a kind landlord. 
I never could turn out a tenant nor arrest a 
poacher. I suppose I was too kind. I might 
better have saved some of the money I gave to 
my people in beef and beer on holidays. But 
it made them happy. I like to see everybody 
happy. That was my chief pleasure. The peo- 
ple were very poor in England then, sir, — not 
that they are not poor now, — and I used to 
be very glad when a good old English holiday 
or a birthday, gave me a chance to give them a 
little festival.” 

I could imagine him the gentle, genial host. 
Fate should have left him there in the old 
hall, dispensing frank hospitality all his sunny 
days and bland seasons through, lunching young 
poets, and showing his Vandykes with proper 
pride to strangers. His story carried truth on 
its face. In fact, the man was all the while an 
illustration of his own tale. Every tone and 
phrase convicted him of his own character. 


HUGH CLITHEROE. 


158 


“ It sometimes makes me a little melancholy,” 
he continued, “ to speak of those happy days. 
Not that I regret the result I have at last at- 
tained ! Ah, no ! But the process was a hard 
one. I have suffered, sir, suffered greatly on my 
way to the peace and confidence I have attained.” 

“ You have attained these ? ” I said. 

“ Yes ; thank God and this Latter-Day reve- 
lation of his truth ! I used to think rather 
carelessly of religion in those times. I suppose 
it is only the contact with sin and sorrow that 
teaches a man to look from the transitory to 
the eternal. Shade makes light precious, as an 
artist would say. I was brought up, you know, 
sir, in the Church of England ; but when I be- 
gan to think, its formalism wearied me. I could 
not understand what seemed to me then the 
complex machinery of its theology. I thought, 
sir, as no doubt many people of the poetic tem- 
perament and little experience think, that God 
deals with men without go-betweens; that he 
acts directly on the character by the facts of 
nature and the thoughts in every soul. It was 
not until I grew old and sad that I began to 
feel the need of something distinct and tangi- 
ble to rest my faith upon, and even then, sir, 
I was sceptical of the need of revelations and 
Messiahs and miracles, until I learnt througn 
the testimony of living witnesses — yes, of living 

7 * 


154 


JOHN BRENT 


witnesses — that such things have come in th# 
Latter Day. Yes, sir, the facts of what you call 
Mormonism, its miracles, its revelations, which 
do not cease, and its new Messiah, have proved 
to me the necessity of other like supernatural 
systems in the past, and given me faith in their 
evidences, which before seemed scanty.” 

“ Ah ! old Mother Church of England ! ” I 
thought, “could you do no better by your son 
than this ? Whose fault is this credulity ? How 
is it that he needs phenomena to give him faith 
in truth?” 

“ But I have not told you,” the old gentle- 
man went on, “ about my disasters. Perhaps 
you are getting tired of my prattle, sir, my old 
man’s talk. I am really not so very old, if 
my hair is thin, and my beard gray, — barely 
fifty, and after this journey I expect to be quite 
a boy again. I suppose you were surprised this 
afternoon, when I spoke of having worked in a 
coal-mine, were you not?” 

The old man seemed to have some little pride 
in this singularity of fortune. I expressed the 
proper interest in such a change of destiny. 

“ You shall hear how it happened,” he said. 
“ You remember, — no, you are too young to 
remember, but you have heard how we all went 
mad about mills and mines in Lancashire some 
twenty years ago.” 


HUGH CLITHEROE. 


155 


“Yes,” said I, “it was then that steam and 
cotton began to understand each other, and ccal 
and negroes became important.” 

“ What a panic of speculation we all rushed 
into in Lancashire ! ” said the old gentlemar 
“We all felt, we gentlemen, that we were mere 
idlers, not doing our duty, as England expects 
every man to do, unless we were building chim- 
neys, or digging pits. We were all either grub- 
bing down in the bowels of the earth for coal, 
or rearing great chimneys up in the air to burn 
it. I really think most of us began to like 
smoke better than blue sky ; certainly it tasted 
sweeter to us than our good old English fog. * 

“ Well, sir,” continued he, “ I was like my 
neighbors. I must dabble in milling and min- 
ing. I was willing to be richer. Indeed, as soon 
as I began to speculate, I thought myself richer. 
I spent more money. I went deeper into my 
operations. One can throw a great treasure into 
a coal-mine without seeing any return, and can 
send a great volume of smoke up a chimney be- 
fore the mill begins to pay. It is an old story 
I will not tire you with it. I was all at once a 
ruined man.” 

He paused a moment, and looked about the 
dim, star-lit prairie, with the white wagons and 
the low fort in the distance. 

“ Well,” said he, in the careless, airy manner 


156 


JOHN BRENT. 


which seemed his characteristic one, “ if I had 
not been ruined, I should have stayed stupidly at 
home, and never worked in a coal-mine, or trav 
elled on the plains, or had the pleasure of meet* 
mg you and your friend here. It is all fresh and 
novel. If it were not for my daughter and my 
duties to the church, I should take my adven- 
tures as lightly as you do when your gun misses 
fire and you lose a dinner. 

“ The thing that troubled me most at the time 
of my disasters,” he resumed, “was being de- 
feated for Parliament. There had always been a 
Clitheroe there. When my father died, I took 
his seat. I used to spend freely on elections ; but 
I thought they sent me because they liked me, or 
for love of the old name. When I lost my for- 
tune there came a snob, sir, and stood against me. 
He accused me of being a free-thinker, — as if 
the Clitheroes had not always been liberal ! He 
got up a cry, and bought votes. My own tenants, 
my old tenants, whom I had feasted out of pure 
good-will a hundred times, turned against me. 
I lost my election and my last shilling. 

“ It was just then, sir, that my dear wife died, 
and my dear Ellen was born.” 

He turned sadly around to look at his daugh- 
ter. She was walking at some distance with 
Brent. The earnest murmur of their voices 
came to us through the stillness. I felt what my 
friend must be saying in that pleading tone. 


HUGH CLITHEROK. 


157 


“ Everything went disastrously with me,” con- 
tinued Mr. Clitheroe. “I tried to recover my 
fortunes, fairly and honestly, but it was too late. 
My creditors took the old Hall. Hugh Clitheroe 
in Harry the Eighth’s time built it, on land 
where the family had lived from before Egbert. 
I lost it, sir. The family came to an end with 
me. I found sheriff’s officers making beer rings 
on my old oak dining-table. The Vandykes 
went. Hugh of Cromwell’s days was divorced 
from his wife, the Beauty. I tried to keep them 
together; but scrubs bought them, and stuck 
them up in their vulgar parlors. Sorry busi- 
ness ! Sorry business ! ” 

“ You kept a brave heart through it all.” 

“Yes, until they accused me of dishonesty. 
That I felt bitterly. And everybody gave me 
the cold shoulder. I could get nothing to do. 
There is not much that a broken-down gentle- 
man can do; but no one would trust me. I 
grew poorer than you can conceive. I lost all 
heart. Men are poor creatures, — as a desolate 
man finds.” 

“ Not all, I hope,” was my protest. 

“ Truly not all. But the friends of prosperity 
are birds that come to be fed, and fly away when 
the crumbs give out. All are not base and time- 
serving ; but men are busy and careless, and 
fancy that others can always take care of them 


158 


JOHN BRENT. 


selves. I could not beg, sir ; but it came nea* 
starvation tome in Christian England, — to *ne 
and my young daughter, within a year after my 
misfortunes. Perhaps I was over-proud or over- 
vain ; but I grew tired of the slights of peopla 
that had known me in my better days, and now 
dodged me because I was shabby and poor. 1 
wanted to get out of sight of the ungrateful, 
ungracious world. The blue sky grew hateful to 
me. I must live, or, if life was nothing to me, 
my daughter must not starve. I had a choice of 
factory or coal-mine to hide myself in. I sank 
into a coal-mine.” 

“ A strange contrast ! ” I said, after a pause. 

“ I am trying to make the whole history less 
dreamy. Each seems unreal, — my luxurious 
life at Clitheroe Hall, and my troglodyte life 
down in the coal-pit. Idler and slave ; either 
extreme had its own special unhappiness and 
unhealthiness.” 

How much wisdom there was in the weakness 
of the old man’s character ! The more I talked 
with him, the more pitiable seemed his destiny. 
“ 0 John Brent ! ” I groaned in my heart, “ plead 
with the daughter as man never pleaded before. 
We must save them from the dismal fate before 
them. And if she cannot master her father, and 
you, John Brent, cannot master her, there is no 
hope.” 


HUGH CLITHEROE. 


159 


My friend made no sign that he was ready xo 
close his interview with the lady. The noise of 
the ball still came to us with the puffs of the 
evening wind. I prompted the communicative 
old gentleman to renew his story. 

“ I have seen the interior of some of the Lan- 
cashire mines ; I have read the Blue Book upon 
them,” I said. “ You must have been in a 
rough place, with company as rough.” 

“ It was hard for a man of delicate nurture. 
But the men liked me. They were not brutes, — 
not all, — if they were roughs. Brutes get away 
from places where hard work is done. My mates 
down in the mine made it easy for me. They 
called me Gentleman Hugh. I was rather 
proud, sir, I confess, to find myseLf liked and 
respected for what I was, not for what I had. It 
was a hard life and a rough life ; but it was an 
honest life, and my child was too young to miss 
what her birth entitled her to. 

“ It was in our mine that I first knew of the 
Latter-Day Church. For years I had drudged 
there, and never thought, or in fact, for myself, 
much cared, to come out. I had tried the pleas- 
ures and friendships of gay life ; they had noth- 
ing new or good to give me. For years I had 
toiled, when the first apostle came out and began 
to make proselytes to the faith in our country. 
They have never disdained the mean and the 


160 


JOHN BRENT. 


lowly. I tell you, sir, that we in our coal-pit, 
and our brothers in the factories, listened to apos- 
tles who came across seas and labored among us 
as if they loved our souls. The false religions 
and outgrown religions left us in the dark ; but 
the true light came to us. My mates in the 
Lancashire mine joined the church by hundreds. 
I was still blind and careless. It was not until 
long afterwards that the time for my conversion 
came. 

“ As my daughter grew up, I felt that I ought 
to be by her. I had worked a long time in the 
mine, and was known to have some education. 
The company gave me a clerkship in their office, 
and there I drudged again for years, asking no 
help or favor. It was in another part of the 
county from my old residence, where riobodj 
knew me. My dear child, — she has always been 
a good child to me, except that she sometimes 
wishes to rule a little too much, — my dear Ellen 
became almost a woman, and all I lacked was 
the means of giving her the position of her rank. 
Education she got herself. We were not un- 
happy, she and I together, lonely as we might be, 
and out of place.” 

The old gentleman had been talking of him- 
self in such a cheerful, healthy way, and showed 
that he had borne such a brave heart through his 
troubles, that I began to puzzle myself what 


HTJGH CLITHEROE. 


161 


could have again changed his character, and 
made of him the weakling I had recognized in 
the interview with Sizzum. 

“ It is very kind of you,” he said, “to listen to 
a garrulous old fellow. Your sympathy is very 
pleasant ; but I must not test it too far. I will 
end my long story presently. 

“I supposed myself entirely forgotten, as I 
was quite willing to be. By and by I was re- 
membered and sought. A far-away kinsman 
had left me a legacy. It was enough for a 
quiet subsistence for us two, for Ellen and me. 
I returned to the neighborhood of my old home. 
I found a little cottage on the banks of Kibble, 
within sight of my old friend, Pendle Hill. 
There we lived.” 

From this point Mr. Clitheroe’s manner totally 
changed. His voice grew peevish and complain- 
ing. All the manly feeling he had showed in 
briefly describing his day-laborer’s life passed 
away. He detailed to me how the new proprie- 
tor at Clitheroe Hall patronized him insufferably ; 
how his old neighbors turned up their noses at 
him, and insulted him by condescension. How 
miserable he found it to cramp himself and save 
shillings in a cottage, with the house in sight 
where be had lavished pounds as Lord of the 
Manor ! How he longed to have his daughter as 
well dressed as any of the young ladies about, 


162 


JOHN BRENT. 


her inferiors in blood, — for no one there could 
rival the Clitheroes’ lineage. How he wished 
himself back in his mine, in his industrious 
clerkship, and how time hung drearily on his 
hands, with nothing to do except dream of by- 
gone glories. I saw that he had sighed to be a 
great man again, and had a morbid sense of his 
insignificance, and that this had made him 
touchy, and alienated well-meaning people about 
him. He spoke with some triumph of his argu- 
ments with the rector of his parish, who endeav- 
ored to check him when he lent what influence 
he had, as a gentleman, to get the Mormons a 
hearing about Clitheroe. He did not, as he said, 
as yet feel any great interest in their doctrines ; 
but he remembered them with good-will from his 
coal-pit days, and whenever an emissary of the 
faith came by, he always found a friend in Hugh 
Clitheroe. They had evidently flattered him. 
It was rare, of course, to find a protector among 
the gentry, and they made the most of the 
chance. 

Poor old man! I could trace the progress 
of his disappointment, and his final fall into that 
miserable superstition. He had been a free-think- 
er ; never industrious or self-possessed enough 
to become a fundamental thinker. No man can 
stand long on nothing, — he must think oat a 
religion, or accept a theology. Now that busy 


HUGH CLITHEBOE. 


163 


days were over, and careless youth gone by, 
Mr. Clitheroe began to be uneasy, and was ready 
to listen to any scheme which promised peace. 
If a Jesuit had happened to find him at this 
period, Rome would have got a recruit with- 
out difficulty. The Pope and Brigham Young 
are the rival bidders for such weaklings in the 
nineteenth century. Brigham with polygamy 
is the complement of Pio with celibacy. 

Instead of Jesuit, Sizzum arrived. Sizzum 
was far abler than any of his Mormon com- 
peers. He was proselyting about Clitheroe, 
where he found it not difficult to persuade the 
poor slaves up in the mill and down in the 
mine to accept a faith that offered at once a 
broad range on earth, and, in good time, a high 
seat in heaven. 

Sizzum was the guest of the discontented and 
decayed gentleman. He saw the opportunity. 
There was an old name and a man of gentle 
birth to rally followers about. It would be a 
triumph for the Latter-Day Saints to march 
away from Clitheroe, a thousand strong, headed 
by the representative of the family who named 
the place, and had once been in Parliament foi 
it. Here was a proselyte in a class which no 
Mormon had dreamed of approaching. Here 
too was 6ome little property. And here wai 
a beautiful daughter. 


164 


JOHN BRENT. 


I could divine the astute Sizzum’s method 
and success with his victim, enfeebled in body 
and spirit. How, seeing his need of something 
final and authoritative in religion, Sizzum showed 
him the immanence of inspiration in his church. 
How he threatened him with wrath to come, 
unless he was gathered from among the Gen- 
tiles. How he persuaded him that a man of his 
education and station would be greater among 
the saints than ever in his best days in Eng- 
land. How he touched the old man’s enthu- 
siasm with tales of caravan life, with the dust 
of the desert and the pork of the pan quite 
left out of view. How, with his national exag- 
geration run riot, he depicted the valley of the 
Great Salt Lake as a Paradise, and the City 
as an apocalyptic wonder, all jasper and sar- 
donyx, all beryl and chrysoprase; and no mud 
and no adobe. How he suggested that in a 
new country, under his advice, the old man’s 
little capital would soon swell to a great in- 
heritance for his daughter. 

By the light of that afternoon’s scene, over 
the tea, I could comprehend the close of Mr. 
Clitheroe’s dreary story, and see how at last 
Sizzum had got him in his gripe, property, per- 
son, and soul. 

Did he wish to escape ? 

No. On! on! he must go on. Only some 


HUGH CLITHEROE. 


165 


force without himself, interposed, cculd turn 
him aside. 

What was this force to be ? 

Nothing that I could say or do ; that I saw 
clearly. His illusions might be nearly gone ; 
but he would hate and distrust any one who 
ventured to pull the scales from his eyes, and 
show him his crazy felly. Indeed, I dreaded 
lest any attempt to enlighten him would drive 
him into actual madness by despair. If he 
had given me a shadow of encouragement, I 
was ready to follow out the hint I had dropped 
when I said to Brent, “ What a night for a 
gallop ! ” My own risk I was willing to take. 
But escape for the lady, without him, was bar- 
barous, and we could not treat him like a Sar 
bine damsel, and lug him off by the hair. 

What could his daughter do? Clearly noth- 
ing. He had evidently long ago revolted against 
her. If I did not mistake her faithful face, she 
would stand by her father to the last. Plead as 
he might, John Brent would never win her to 
save herself and lose her father ; and indeed that 
was a desertion he could never recommend. 

A dark look for all parties. 

Whence was the force to come that should 
Bolve the difficulty ? 


CHAPTER XT. 


A LOVER. 

Two long hours I had kept Mr. Clitheroe in 
talk. For my friend’s sake I would have pro- 
longed the interview indefinitely. For my own, 
too. He was a new character to me, this gentle 
soul, so sadly astray. My filial feeling for him 
deepened momently. And as my pity grew more 
exquisitely painful, I shrank still from quitting 
him, and so acknowledging that the pity was 
hopeless. 

We approached the fort. The fiddlers three 
were dragging their last grumbling notes out of 
drowsy strings. The saints began to stream by 
toward their wagons. We turned away to avoid 
recognition. 

Miss Clitheroe and Brent joined us, — a sadder 
pair than we. The stars showed me the glim- 
mer of tears in her eyes. But her look was 
brave and steady. She left my friend, and laid 
her hand on her father’s arm. A marked like- 
ness, and yet a contrast more marked, between 
these two. He had given her his refinement, a 


A LOVER. 


167 


quality so in him and of him that he colored 
whatever came near him with an emanation from 
himself, and so was blinded to its real crude 
tints. By this medium he made in his descrip- 
tion that black hole of a coal mine, where so 
many of his years had been buried, a grotto of 
enchantment. He filled the world with illusions. 
Whatever was future and whatever was past, 
seen through his poetic imagination, seemed to 
him so beautiful, or so strange and interesting, 
that he lost all care for the discomforts of the 
present. And this same refinement of nature 
deluded him in judging character. Bad and 
")ase motives seemed to him so ugly, that he 
refused to see them, shrank from belief in 
them, and insisted upon trusting that men were 
ns honorable as himself. He was a man for 
prosperity. What did fate mean by maltreating 
him with the manifold adversities of his life? 
To what end was this sad error ? 

A strange contrast, with all the likeness, be- 
tween his daughter and him. A more vigorous 
being had mingled its life with hers. Or perhaps 
the stern history of her early days had taught 
her to forge the armor of self-protection. She 
seemed to have all her father’s refinement, but 
she used it to surround and seclude herself, not 
to change and glorify others. Godiva was not 
more delicately hidden from the vulgar world by 


168 


JOHN BRENT. 


the mantle of her own golden hair, than this 
sweet lady by her veil of gentle breeding. 

As she took her father’s arm to lead him away 
to the camp, I could read in her look that there 
were no illusions for her. But she clave to her 
father, — the blinder and more hopelessly errant 
he might be, the closer she clave. He might 
reject her guidance ; she still stood by to protect 
him, to sweeten his life, and when the darkness 
came, which she could not but foresee, to be a 
light to him. However adversity had thus far 
failed to teach him self-possession, it had made 
her a heroine and a martyr, — a noble and un- 
selfish soul, such as, one among the myriads, 
God educates to shame the base and the trifling, 
and to hearten and inspire the true. 

“ Now, dear father,” she said, “ we must bid 
these kind friends good night. We start early 
We need rest.” 

She held out her hand to me. 

“Dear lady,” said I, taking her aside a mo- 
ment while Brent spoke to Mr. Clitheroe, “ we 
are acquaintances of to-day; but campaigners 
must despise ceremony. Your father has told 
me much of your history. I infer your feel 
ings. Consider me as a brother. Nothing can 
be done to aid you?” 

“ Your kindness and your friend’s kindness 
touch me greatly. Nothing can be done.” 


A LOVER. 


16V 


She sobbed a little. I still held her hand. 

“ Nothing ! ” said I, “ nothing ! Will you go 
on with these people ? you, a lady ! with your 
fate staring you in the face ! 99 

She withdrew her hand and looked at me 
steadily with her large gray eyes. What a 
woman to follow into the jaws of death ! 

“ My fate,” she said, “ can be no worse than 
the old common fate of death. That I accept, 
any other I defy. God does not leave the wor- 
thy to shame.” 

“We say so, when we hope.” 

“I say it and believe.” 

“ Come, Ellen dear,” called her father. 

There was always between them, whenever 
they spoke, by finer gentleness of tone and words 
of endearment, a recognition of how old and close 
and exclusive was their union. Only when Siz- 
zum was present at tea, the tenderness, under 
that coarsening influence, passed away from the 
father’s voice and manner, making the daugh- 
ter’s more and more tender, that she might win 
him back to her. 

“ Good bye ! ” she said. “We shall remember 
each other kindly.” 

“ Yes, gentlemen,” said Mr. Clitheroe. “ This 
has been quite the pleasantest episode of our 
journey. You must not forget us when you are 
roamiDg through this region again.” 


170 


JOHN BRENT. 


He said this with his light, cheerful manner 
They turned away. It seemed as if Death arose 
and parted us. We followed at a distance and 
watched them safe to their wagon. The night 
wind had risen, and went sighing over the desert 
reaches, bringing with it the distant howling of 
wolves. 

“ Do not speak to me,” said Brent, “ I will 
talk to you by and by.” 

He left me and went toward our horses. It 
had been imprudent to leave them so long at 
night, with bad spirits about. 

I looked into the fort again. The dancers 
had gone. Bottery was fumbling drunkenly 
over his fiddle. A score of men were within 
the house carousing. Old Bridgets whiskey 
had evidently flowed freely. In one corner 
Larrap had unrolled a greasy faro-cloth and 
was dealing. Murker backed him. They were 
winning largely. They bagged their winnings 
out of sight, as fast as they fell in. Sizzum, 
rather to my surprise, was a little excited with 
liquor, and playing recklessly, losing sovereigns 
by the handful. As he lost, he became furious. 
He struck Larrap in the face and called him 
cheat. Larrap gave him an ugly look, and then, 
assuming a boozy indifference, caught Sizzum 
by the hand and vowed he was his best friend. 
Murker kept aloof from the dispute. The game 


A LOVER. 


171 


began again. Again Sizzum and the Mormons 
lost. Again Sizzum slapped the dealer, and, 
catching the faro-cloth, tore it in two. The two 
gamblers saw that they were in danger. They 
had kept themselves sober and got the others 
drunk for such a crisis. They hurried out of 
the way. Sizzum and his brother saints chased 
them ; but presently, losing sight of them in the 
dusk, they staggered off toward camp, singing 
uproariously. Their leader on this festival had 
somewhat forgotten the dignity of the apostle 
and captain. 

This low rioting was doubly disgusting to me, 
after the sad evening with our friends. I found 
Sizzum more offensive as a man of the world 
than as a saint. I say man of the world, be- 
cause the gambling scenes of nominal gentle- 
men are often just as hateful, if more decorous, 
than those of that night. I walked slowly off 
toward camp, sorrowful and sick at heart. Base- 
ness and vulgarity had never seemed to me so 
oase and vulgar till now. 

I suddenly heard a voice in the bushes. It 
was Larrap. He was evidently persuading his 
comrade to some villany. I caught a suspicious 
word or two. 

“ Ah ! ” thought I, “ you want our horses. 
We will see to that.” 

I walked softly by. Brent was seated by the 


172 


JOHN BRENT. 


ambers of a camp-fire, cowered in a heap, like 
a cold Indian. He raised his face. All the 
light had gone out of him. This trouble had 
suddenly worn into his being, like the shirt 
of Nessus, and poisoned his life. 

“ John,” said I, “ I never knew you despond- 
ent before.” 

“ This is not despondency.” 

“ What then ? ” 

“ Despair.” 

“ I cannot offer to cheer you.” 

“It is bitter, Wade. I have yearned to be 
a lover for years. All at once I find the woman 
I have seen and thought of, and known from my 
first conscious moment. The circumstances 
crowded my love into sudden intensity. I 
made the observations and did the work of 
months of acquaintance in those few moments 
while we were at tea. My mind always acts 
quick. I seem always to have been discussing 
my decisions with myself, years before the sub- 
ject of decision comes to me. Whatever hap- 
pens, falls on me with the force of a doom. I 
loved Miss Clitheroe’s voice the instant I heard 
its brave tenderness answering her father. I 
loved her unseen, and would have died for her 
that moment. When she appeared, and I saw 
her face and read her heart, I knew that it was 
the old dream, — the old dream that I never 


A LOVER. 


173 


thoughl would be other than a dream. The 
ancient hope and expectation, coeval with my 
life, was fulfilled. She is the other self I have 
been waiting for and seeking for.” 

“ Have you told her so ? ” 

“ Can a man stop the beating of his heart ? 
Can a man not breathe ? Not in words, perhaps 
I did not use the lover words. But she under- 
stood me. She did not seem surprised. She 
recognizes such a passion as her right and 
desert.” 

“ A great-hearted woman can see how a man 
worthy of her can nullify time and space, and 
meet her, soul to soul, in eternity from the first.” 

“ So I meet her ; but circumstances here are 
stronger than love.” 

“ Can she do nothing with her father ? ” 

“Nothing. She failed in England when this 
delusion first fell upon him.” 

“Did she know what it meant for her and 
him ? ” 

“ Hardly. She even fancied that they would 
be happier in America than at home, where she 
saw that his old grandeur was always reproach 
ing him.” 

“ Did he conceal from her the goal and object 
of his emigration ? ” 

“ She knew he was, or supposed himself to be, 
a Mormon But Mormonism was little mor« 


174 


JOHN BRENT. 


than a name to her. She believed his perversion 
only a transitory folly. It is but recently, only 
since they were away from succor, off in the 
desert, that she has perceived her own risk. 
She hoped that the voyage from England would 
disenchant her father, and that she could keep 
him in the States. No ; he was committed ; he 
was impracticable. You have seen yourself how 
far his faith is shaken. Just so far that his 
crazy cheerfulness has given place to moping; 
but he will hear nothing of reason.” 

“ What does she anticipate ? ” 

“ She says she only dares to endure. Day by 
day they both wear away. Day by day her 
father’s bright hope dwindles away. Day by day 
she perceives the moment of her own danger 
approaching. She could not speak to me of it ; 
but I could feel by her tone her disgust and dis- 
dain of Sizzum. 0, how steady and noble she 
is ! All for her father ! All to guide him with 
the fewest pangs to that desolate death she knows 
must come ! She gave me a few touches of their 
past history, so that I could see how much closer 
and tenderer than the common bond of parent 
and child theirs had been.” 

“ That I saw, from the old gentleman’s story. 
Sorrow and poverty ennoble love.” 

“ She thanked me and you so sweetly for our 
society, and the kind words we had given them. 


A LOVER. 


176 


She had not seen her father so cheerful, so like 
himself, since they had left England.” 

“What a weary pilgrimage they must have 
had, poor errant souls ! ” 

“ 0 Wade, Wade ! how this tragedy of theirs 
cures me forever of any rebellion against my 
own destiny. A helpless woman’s tragedy is so 
much bitterer than anything that can befall a 
man.” 

“ Must we say helpless, John ? ” 

“ Are we two an army, that we can take them 
by force ? She has definitely closed any further 
communication on our part. She said that I 
could not have failed to notice how Elder Sizzum 
disliked our presence. I must promise her not 
to be seen with them in the morning. Sizzum 
would find some means to punish her father, and 
that would be torture to her. It seems that vil- 
lain plays on the old man’s religious supersti- 
tions, and can terrify him almost to madness.” 

“ The villain ! And yet how far back of him 
lies the blame, that such terrors can exist in any 
man’s mind, when God is Love.” 

“ I promised her not to see her again — for 
you and myself; to see her no more. That 
good-bye was final. Now let me alone for a 
while, my dear old boy; I am worn out and 
heart-broken.” 

He mummied himself in his blankets, and lay 


176 


JOHN BRENT. 


on the grass, motionless as a dead man. It was 
not his way to shirk camp duties. Indeed, his 
volunteer services had left me in arrears. 

I put our fire-arms in order in case of attack, 
and extinguished our fire. Our horses, too, I 
drove in and tethered close by. My old suspicion 
of Murker and Larrap had revived from their 
mutterings. I thought that, after their great 
winnings of to-night, they would feel that they 
could make nothing more of the mail party, and 
might seize the chance to stampede or steal some 
of the Mormon horses or ours. It was a capital 
chance in the sleepy hours after the revel. Horse- 
stealing, since the bad example of Diomed, has 
never gone out of fashion. Fulano and Pumps 
were great prizes. I knew that Larrap hated 
Brent for his undisguised abhorrence and the 
ugly words and collision of to-day. The pair 
bore good-will to neither of us. Their brutality 
had jarred with us from the beginning. I knew 
ihey would take personal pleasure in serving us 
a shabby trick out of their dixonary. On the 
whole, I determined to watch all night. 

Easy to purpose; hard to perform. I leaned 
against my saddle and thought over the day. 
How I pitied poor Brent ! Pitied him the more 
thoroughly, since I was hardly less a lover than 
he. Long afterwards, long after the misery of 
love dead in despair, comes the time when one 


A LOVER. 


17 ? 


can say, “Ich habe gelobt uad geliebet”; can 
know, “ ’T is better to have loved and lost, than 
never to have loved at all/’ But no such sooth- 
ing poetry could sing resignation to my friend 
in his unselfish misery. All he could do — all 
I could do — was to bear the agony of this sud- 
den cruel wrong; to curse the chances of life 
that had so weakened the soul of our new friend 
and so darkened his sight that he could not know 
truth from falsehood. Doubly to curse the false- 
hood. Before, it had only been something to 
scorn. Here tragedy entered. The mean, miser- 
able, ludicrous invention of Mormonism, the fool- 
ish fable of an idler, had grown to be a great 
masterly tyranny. These two souls were clutched 
by this foul ogre, and locked up in an impregna- 
ble prison. And we two were baffled. Of what 
use was our loyalty to woman? What vain 
words those unuttered words of our knightly vow 
to succor all distressed damsels, — the vow that 
every gentleman takes upon himself, as earnestly 
now, and wills to keep as faithfully, as any Arte- 
gall in the days gone by, when wrong took crud- 
er and more monstrous form ! More monstrous 
form ! Could any wrong be more detestable ! 
Did knight, who loved God and honored his 
lady, ever encounter more paynim-like horde 
than this, — the ignorant misled by the base? 

7n such dreary protest and pity I passed an 

8 * b 


178 


JOHN BRENT. 


hour. The evening breeze had strengthened mt« 
a great gusty wind, blowing from the moun- 
tains to the southward. I drowsed a little. A 
perturbed slumber overcame me. The roaring 
night-wind aroused me at intervals with a blast 
more furious, and I woke to perceive ominous 
and turbulent dreams flitting from my brain, — 
dreams of violence, tyranny, and infamous out- 
rage. 

Suddenly another sensation went creeping 
along my nerves. I sat bolt upright. There 
was a feeling of human presence, of stealthy ap- 
proach coming up against the night-wind and 
crushing its roar with a sound more penetrat- 
ing. 

Brent, too, was on the alert. 

“ Some one at our horses,” he whispered. 

We dashed forward. There was a rustle of 
flight through the bushes. We each fired a 
shot. The noise ceased. 

“ Stop ! ” said my friend, as I was giving 
chase. “ We must not leave the horses. They 
will stampede them while we are off.” 

“ They ? perhaps it was only a cayctie or a 
wolf. Why, Fulano! old fellow!” 

Fulano trotted up, neighing, and licked my 
hand. His lariat had been cut, — a clean cut 
with a knife. We were only just in time. 

u We must keep watch till morning,” said L 


A LOVER. 


179 


“ I have been drowsing. I will take the first 
hour.” 

Brent, with a moan of weariness, threw him 
self down again on the grass. I sat watchful. 

The night-wind went roaring on. It loves 
those sweeps and surges of untenanted plain, 
as it loves the lifts and levels of the barren 
sea. The fitful gale rushed down as if it boiled 
over the edge of some great hollow in the moun- 
tains, and then stayed to gather force for an- 
other overflow. In its pauses I could hear the 
stir and murmur of the Mormon cattle, a thou- 
sand and more. But once there came a larger 
pause ; the air grew silent, as if it had never 
known a breeze, or as if all life and motion 
between earth and sky were utterly and for- 
ever quelled. 

In that one instant of dead stillness, when the 
noise of the cattle was hushed, and our horses 
ceased champing to listen, I seemed to hear the 
clang of galloping hoofs, not far away to the 
southward. 

Galloping hoofs, surely I heard them. Or 
was it only the charge of a fresh blast down 
the mountain-side, uprooting ancient pines, and 
flinging great rocks from crag to chasm? 

And that strange, terrible, human, inhuman 
sound, outringing the noise of the hoofs, and 
making the silence a ghastly horror, — was i* 
a woman's scream ? 


180 


JOHN BRENT. 


No ; it could only be my fevered imagine 
tion, that found familiar sounds in the inar- 
ticulate voices of the wilderness. I listened 
long and intently. The wind sighed, and raved, 
and threatened again. I heard the dismal howl- 
ing of wolves far away in the darkness. 

I kept a double watch of two hours, and then, 
calling Brent to do his share, threw myself ca 
the grass and slept soundly. 


CHAPTER XTI. 


ARMSTRONG. 

I awoke in the solemn quiet dawn of the 
next morning with my forebodings of ill gone, 
and in their stead what I could not but deem 
a baseless hopefulness for our new friends’ wel- 
fare. 

Brent did not share it. His usual gay matin- 
song was dumb. He cowered, chilled and spirit- 
less, by our camp-fire. Breakfast was an idle 
ceremony to both. We sat and looked at each 
other. His despair began to infect me. This 
would not do. 

I left my friend, sitting unnerved and pur- 
poseless, and walked to the mail-riders’ camp. 

Jake Shamberlain was already stirring about, 
as merry as a grig, — and that is much to say 
on the Plains. There are two grigs to every 
blade of grass from Echo Canon to the South 
Pass, and yet every one sings and skips, as gay as 
if merriment would make the desert a meadow. 

“ You are astir early after the ball, Jake,’ 9 
said I. 


182 


JOHN BRENT. 


‘ Ef I wait till the gals in the train oegini 
to polky round, I shan’t git my men away 
nayry time. They olluz burr to gals, like all 
young fellers. We ’ll haul off jest as soon as 
you ’re ready.** 

“We are ready,” I said. 

I made our packs, and saddled the mustangs. 

“ Come, Brent,” said I, shaking him by the 
shoulder, “ start, old fellow ! Your ride will 
rouse you.” 

He obeyed, and mounted. He was quite 
cowed and helpless. I did not know my brave, 
cheerful friend in this weak being. He seemed 
to me as old and dreary as Mr. Clitlieroe. Love 
must needs have taken a very cruel clutch upon 
his heart. Indeed, to the delicate nature of 
such a man, love is either life of life, or a mur- 
derous blight worse than death. 

As we started, a gray dawn was passing into 
the violet light just before sunrise. The gale 
had calmed itself away. The tender hues of 
morning glorified the blue adobes of Bridger’s 
shabby fort. It rested on the plain, still as the 
grave, — stiller for the contrast of this silent 
hour with last night’s riot. A deathly quiet, 
too, dwelt upon the Mormon caravan. There 
were the white-topped wagons just growing rosy 
with the fond colors of early day. No aban- 
doned camp of a fled army could have looked 


ARMSTRONG. 


183 


more lonely. Half a mile from the train were 
the cattle feeding quietly in a black mass, like 
a herd of buffalo. There was not one man, 
out of our own party, to be seen. 

“ Where are their sentinels, Jake ? ” said I. 

“ Too much spree for good watch,” says he. 

“ Elder Sizzum ought to look sharper.” 

“ He ’s a prime leader. But he tuk dance, 
argee, and faro last night with a perfect loose- 
ness. I dunno what ’s come over Sizzum ; bein’ 
a great apossle ’s maybe too much for him. But 
then he knows ther ain’t no Utes round here, to 
stampede his animals or run off any of his gals. 
Both er you men could have got you a wife 
apiece last night, and ben twenty miles on the 
way, and nobody the wiser. Now, boys, be alive 
with them mules. I want to be off.” 

“ Where are Smith and Robinson ? ” I asked, 
missing the two gamblers as we started. 

“ Let ’em slide, cuss ’em ! ” said Jake. 
“ ’ Taint my business to call ’em up, and fetch 
’em hot water, and black their boots. They 
moved camp away from us, over into the brush 
by you. Reckon they was afeard some on us 
would be goin’ halves with ’em in the pile they 
raked last night. Let ’em slide, the durn rip- 
perbits! Every man for hisself, I say. They 
snaked me to the figure of a slug at their 
cheatin’ game ; an’ now they may sleep till 
they dry and turn to grasshopper pie, for me" 


184 


JOHN BRENT. 


Jake cracked his long whip. The mulei 
sprang forward together. We started. 

I gave one more look at the caravan we had 
seen winding so beautifully down on the plain, 
no longer ago than yesterday evening. Rosy 
morning brightened on every wagon of the great 
ellipse. Not a soul was to be seen of all their 
tenants. I recognized Mr. Clitheroe’s habitation 
at the farther end. That, too, had the same 
mysterious, deserted air, as if the sad pair who 
dwelt in it had desperately wandered away into 
the desert by night. 

Brent would not turn. He kept his haggard 
face bent eastward, toward the horizon, where an 
angry sunrise began to thrust out the quiet hues 
of dawn. 

I followed the train, doggedly refusing to 
think more of those desolate friends we were 
leaving. Their helpless fate made all the beauty 
of the scene only crueller bitterness. What 
right had dawn to tinge with sweetest violet and 
with hopeful rose the shelters of that camp of 
delusion and folly ! 

We rode steadily on through the cool haze, 
and then through the warm, sunny haze, of that 
October morning. Brent hardly uttered a word, 
He left me the whole task of driving our horses. 
A difficult task this morning. Their rest and 
feast of yesterday had put Pumps and Fulano in 


ARMSTRONG. 


18 fi 

high spirits. I had my hands full to keep them 
in the track. 

We had ridden some eighteen miles, when 
Brent fell back out of the dust of our march, 
and beckoned me. 

“Dick,” said he, “I have had enough of this.” 

He grew more like himself as he spoke. 

“ I was crushed and cowardly last night and 
this morning,” he continued. “For the first 
time in my life, my hope and judgment failed me 
together. You must despise me for giving up 
and quitting Miss Clitheroe.” 

“ My dear boy,” said I, “ we were partners in 
our despair.” 

“ Mine is gone. I have made up my mind. I 
will not leave her. I will ride on with you to 
the South Pass. That will give the caravan a 
start, so that I can follow unobserved. Then I 
will follow, and let her know in some way that 
she has a friend within call. She must be saved, 
sooner or later, whether she will or no. Love or 
no love, such a woman shall not be left to will 
herself dead, rather than fall into the hands of a 
beast like Sizzum. I have no mission, you 
know,” and he smiled drearily; “I make one 
now. I cannot fight the good fight against vil- 
lany and brutishness anywhere better than here. 
When I get into the valley, I will camp down at 
Jake’s I can keep my courage up hunting 


180 


JOHN BRENT. 


grizzly s until she wants me. Perhaps I may 
find Biddulph there still. What do you say, old 
fellow? J am bound to you for the journey. 
Will you forgive mo for leaving you?” 

“ You will find it hard work to leave me. 
I go with you and stand by you in this cause, 
life or death.” 

“ My dear friend ! my brother ! ” 

We took hands on thb. 

Our close friendship passed into completed 
brotherhood. Doubts and scruples vanished. 
We gave ourselves to our knight-errantry. 

“ We will save her, John,” said I. “ She is 
my sister from this moment.” 

His face lighted up with the beauty of his boy- 
ish days. He straightened himself in his saddle, 
gave his fair moustache a twirl, and hummed, 
for gayety of heart, “ Ah non giunge ! ” to the 
beat of his mustang’s hoofs. 

We were riding at the bottom of a little 
hollow. The dusty trail across the unfenced 
wilderness, worn smooth and broad as a turn- 
pike by the march of myriad caravans, climbed 
ip the slopes before and behind us, like the 
wake of a ship between surges. The mail train 
had disappeared over the ridge. Our horses 
had gone with it. Brent and I were alone, 
as if the world held no other tenants. 

Suddenly we heard the rush of a horseman 
after us. 


ARMSTRONG. 


18 ? 


Before we could turn he was down the hil- 
lock, — he was at our side. 

He pulled his horse hard upon his haunches 
and glared at us. A fierce look it was ; yet 
a bewildered look, as of one suddenly cheated 
of a revenge he had laid finger on. 

He glared at us, we gazed at him, an instant, 
without a word. 

A ghastly pair — this apparition — horse and 
man ! The horse was a tall, gaunt white. There 
were the deep hollows of age over his blood- 
shot eyes. His outstretched head showed that 
he shared his master’s eagerness of pursuit. 
Heath would have chosen such a steed for a 
gallop on one of death’s errands. 

Death would have commissioned such a rider 
to bear a sentence of death. A tall, gaunt man, 
with the loose, long frame of a pioneer. But 
the brown vigor of a pioneer was gone from 
him. His face was lean and bloodless. It was 
clear where some of his blood had found issue. 
A strip of old white blanket, soiled with dust 
and blood, was turbaned askew about his head, 
and under it there showed the ugly edges of 
a recent wound. 

When he pulled up beside us, his stringy 
right hand was ready upon the butt of a re- 
volver. He dropped the muzzle as he looked 

at us. 


188 


JOHN BRENT. 


For what horror was this man the embodied 
Nemesis ! 

“ Where are they ? ” 

He whispered this question in a voice thick 
with stern purpose, and shuddering with some 
recollection that inspired the purpose. 

“They! who?” 

“ The two murderers.” 

“ They stayed behind at Bridger.” 

“ No. The Mormons told me they were here. 
Don’t hide them ! Their time is come.” 

Still in the same curdling whisper. He 
crushed his voice, as if he feared the very hil- 
locks of the prairie would reverberate his words, 
and earth would utter a warning cry to those 
he hunted to fly, fly, for the avenger of blood 
was at hand. 

No need to be told whom he sought. The 
two gamblers — the two murderers — the brutes 
we had suspected ; but where were they ? Where 
to be sought? 

We hailed the mail train. It was but a 
hundred yards before us over the ridge. Jake 
Shamberlain and his party returned to learn 
what delayed us. 

The haggard horsemen stared at them all, in 
silence. 

“ I ’ve seen you before, stranger,” said Sham- 
Derlain. 


ARMSTRONG. 


189 


“ Yes/’ said the man, in his shuddering 
whisper. 

“ It ’s Armstrong from Oregon, from the Unq> 
qua, aint it ? You don’t look as if you were 
after cattle this time. Where ’s your brother ? ” 

“ Murdered.” 

“ I allowed something had happened, because 
he warnt along. I never seed two men stick 
so close as you and he did. They didn’t kill 
him without gettin’ a lick at you, I see. Who 
was it ? Indians ? ” 

“ Worse.” 

“ I reckon I know why you ’re after us, then.” 

“ I can’t waste time, Shamberlain,” said Arm- 
strong, in a hurried whisper. “ I’ll tell you in 
two words what’s happened to me, and p’r’aps 
you can help me to find the men I mean to 
find.” 

“ I’ll help you, if I know how, Armstrong. I 
haint seen no two in my life, old country or new 
country, saints or gentiles, as I ’d do more for ’n 
you and your brother. I ’ve olluz said, ef the 
world was chock full of Armstrongs, Paradise 
would n’t pay, and Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob 
mout just as well blow out their candle and go 
under a bushel-basket, unless a half-bushel would 
kiver ’em.” 

The stranger seemed insensible to this compli 
ment He went on in the same whisper, full of 


190 


JOHN BBENT. 


agony, pain, and weariness. While he talked, 
his panting horse drew up his lip and whinnied, 
showing his long, yellow teeth. The spirit of his 
rider had entered him. He was impatient of 
this dalliance. 

“ We were coming down from the Umpqua, 
my brother and I,” says Armstrong, “goan 
across to the States, to drive out cattle next 
summer. We was a little late one morning, 
along of our horses havin’ strayed off from 
camp, and that was how we met them men. 
Two on ’em ther’ was, — a tall, most ungodly 
Pike, and a little fat, mean-lookin’ runt. We 
lighted on ’em jest to the crossin’ of Bear River. 
They was cornin’ from Sacramenter, they said. 
I kinder allowed they was horse-thieves, and 
wanted to shy off. But Bill — that was my 
brother ” 

Here the poor fellow choked a little. 

“ Bill, he never could n’t think wrong of no- 
body. Bill, he said , 4 No. Looks was nothin’,’ he 
said, 4 and we ’d jine the fellers.’ So we did, 
and rode together all day, and camped together 
on a branch we cum to. I reckon we talked too 
much about the cattle we was goan to buy, and 
I suppose ther’ aint many on the Pacific side 
that aint heard of the Armstrongs. They al- 
lowed we had money, — them murderers did. 
Well, we camped all right, and went to sleep, 


ARMSTRONG 


191 


and i never knowed nothin’, ef it warnt a dream 
that a grizzly had wiped me over the head, till I 
woke up the next day with the sun brilin’ down 
on my head, and my head all raw and bloody, as 
ef I ’d been scalped. And there was Bill — my 
brother Bill — lyin’ dead in his blankets.” 

A shudder passed through our group. These 
were the men we had tolerated, sat with at the 
camp-fire, to whose rough stories and foul jokes 
we had listened. Brent’s instinct was true. 

Armstrong was evidently an honest, simple, 
kindly fellow. His eyes were pure, gentle blue. 
They filled with tears as he spoke. But the 
stern look remained, the Rhadaman thine whisper 
only grew thicker with vengeance. 

“Bill was dead,” he continued. “The hatchet 
slipped when they come to hit me, and they was 
too skeared, I suppose, to go on choppin’ me, as 
they had him. P’r’aps his ghost cum round and 
told ’em ’t warnt the fair thing they ’d ben at, 
and ’t warnt. But they got our horses, Bill’s big 
porrel and my Flathead horse, what ’s made a 
hunderd and twenty-three miles betwixt sunrise 
and sunset of a September day, goan for the doc- 
tor, when Ma Armstrong was tuk to die. They 
got the horses, and our money belts. So whe& 
I found Bill was dead, I knowed what my life 
was left me for. I tied up my head, and some- 
how 1 crep, and walked, and run, and got to Box 


192 


JOHN BRENT. 


Elder. I don’t know how long it took, nor who 
showed me the way ; but I got there.” 

Box Elder is the northernmost Mormon settle- 
ment, or was, in those days. 

“ I’ll never say another word agin the Mormon 
religion, Jake,” Armstrong went on. “They 
treated me like a brother to Box Elder. They 
outfitted me with a pistol, and this ere horse. 
They said he ’d come in from a train what the 
Indians had cut off, and was a terrible one to go 
He is ; and I believe he knows what he ’s goan 
for. I ’ve ben night and day ridin’ on them 
murderers’ trail. Now, men, give me time to 
think. Bill’s murderers aint at Bridger. They 
was there last midnight. They must be some- 
wheres within fifty miles, and I ’ll find ’em, so 
help me God ! ” 

His hoarse whisper was still. No one spoke. 

Another rush of hoofs down the slope behind l 


CHAPTER XVII. 


CAITIFF BAFFLES OGEE. 

Another rush of horses’ feet behind ub. 

What? 

Elder Sizzum ! 

And that pale, gray shadow of a man, whose 
pony the Elder drags by the bridle, and lashes 
cruelly forward, — who ? 

Mr. Clitheroe. 

Sizzum rode straight up to Brent. 

The two men faced each other, — the big, 
hulking, bullying saint ; the slight, graceful, self- 
possessed gentile. Sizzum quailed a little when 
he saw the other did not quail. He seemed to 
change his intended form of address. 

“ Brother Clitheroe wants his daughter,” said 
Sizzum. 

“ Yes, yes, gentlemen,” said Mr. Clitheroe in 
feeble echo, “ I want my daughter.” 

Brent ignored the Mormon. He turned to 
the father, and questioned eagerly. 

“ What is this, dear sir ? Is Miss Ellen miss- 
ing? She is not here. Speak, sir! Tell us 


194 


JOHN BRENT. 


at once how she was lost. We must be oa 
her track instantly. Wade, shift the saddles 
to Fulano and Pumps, while I make up our 
packs. Speak, sir! Speak!” 

Brent’s manner carried conviction, even to 
Sizzum. 

“ I did not like to suspect you, gentlemen,” 
said Mr. Clitheroe, “ after our pleasant evening 
and your kindness ; but Brother Sizzum said it 
could not be any one else.” 

“ Get the facts, Wade,” said Brent, “ I can- 
not trust myself to ask.” 

Sizzum smiled a base, triumphant smile over 
the agony of my friend. 

“ Tell us quick,” said I, taking Mr. Clitheroe 
hrmly by the arm, and fixing his eye. 

“ In the night, an hour or more after you 
left us, I was waked up by two men creeping 
into the wagon. They whispered they would 
shoot, if I breathed. They passed behind the 
curtain. My daughter had sunk on the floor, 
tired out, poor child ! without undressing. They 
threw a blanket over her head, and stifled her 
so that she could not utter a sound. They 
tied me and gagged me. Then they dragged 
her off. God forgive me, gentlemen, for sus- 
pecting you of such brutality! I lay in the 
wagon almost strangled to death until the team- 
ster came to put to the oxen for our journey, 
That is all I know.” 


CAITIFF BAFFLES OGRE 


195 


The two gamblers, murderers, have carried 
her off,” said I ; “ but we ’ll save her yet, please 
God ! ” 

“ 0,” said Sizzum, “ ef them devils has got 
her, that ’s the end of her. I haint got no 
more interest in her case. I believe I ’ll go. 
I ’ve wasted too much time now from the Lord’s 
business.” 

He moved to go. 

“ What am I to do ? ” said Mr. Clitheroe. 

Forlorn, bereaved, perplexed old man ! Any 
but a brute would have hesitated to strike him 
another blow. Sizzum did not hesitate. 

“ You may go to the devil across lots, on 
that runt pony of yourn, with your new friends, 
for all I care. I ’ve <had enough of your daugh- 
ter’s airs, as if she was too good to be teched 
by one of the Lord’s chosen. But she ’ll get 
the Lord’s vengeance now, because she would n’t 
6ee what was her place and privileges. And 
you ’re no better than a backslider. You ’ve 
been grumblin’ and settin’ yourself up for some- 
body. I would cuss you now with the wrath 
to come if such a poor-spirited granny was wuth 
cussin’.” 

The base wretch lashed his horse and gal- 
loped off. 

Even his own people of the mail party looked 
and muttered contempt. 


196 


JOHN BRENT. 


Mr. Clitheroe seemed utterly stunned. Guide, 
Faith, Daughter, all gone ! What was he to do, 
indeed ! 

“ Never mind, Mr. Clitheroe, ,, said Brent, ten- 
derly, “ I hope you have not lost a daughter. 
I know you have gained a son, — yes, two of 
them. Here, Jake Shamberlain ! ” 

“ Here, sir ! Up to time ! Ready to pull my 
pound ! ” 

“ Wade and I are going after the lady. Do 
you take this gentleman, and deliver him safe 
and sound to Captain Ruby at Fort Laramie. 
Tell Ruby to keep him till we come, and treat 
him as he would General Scott. Drive our 
mules and the mustangs to Laramie, and leave 
them there. We trust the whole to you There’s 
no time to talk. Tell me what money you want 
for the work, and I ’ll pay you now in ad- 
vance, whatever you ask.” 

“ I ’ll be switched round creation ef you do. 
Not the first red ! You think, bekase I ’m a 
Mormon, as you call it, I haint got no nat’ral 
feelin’s. Why, boys, I ’d go with you myself 
after the gal, and let Uncle Sam’s mail lie there 
and wait till every letter answered itself, ef I 
had a kettrypid what could range with yourn. 
No, no, Jake Shamberlain aint a hog, and his 
mail boys aint of the pork kind. I ’ll take keer 
of the old gentleman, and put him through jest 


CAITIFF BAFFLES OGRE. 


197 


f i if he was my own father, and wutli a million 
slugs. And ef that aint talkin’ fair, I dunno 
what is.” 

We both griped Jake Shamberlain’s friendly 
fist. 

Mr. Clitheroe, weary with his morning’s ride, 
faint and sick after his bonds of the night, and 
now crushed in spirit and utterly bewildered 
with these sudden changes, was handed over to 
his new protector. 

The emancipating force had found him. He 
was free of his Mormonism. His delusion had 
discarded him. A rough and cruel termination 
of his hopes! How would he bear this disap- 
pointment ? Would his heart break ? Would 
his mind break? his life break? 

We could not check ourselves to think of 
him. Our thoughts were galloping furiously on 
in succor of the daughter, fallen on an evil 
fate. 

While this hasty talk had been going on, I had 
shifted our saddles to Pumps and Fulano. Noble 
fellows ! they took in the calm excitement of my 
mood. They grew eager as a greyhound when 
he sees the hare break cover. They divined that 
their moment had come ! Now their force was 
to be pitted against brutality. Horse against 
brute, — which would win? I dared pot think 
of the purpose of our going. Only, P^gonaJ 


198 


JOHN BRENT. 


Begone! was ringing in my ears, and a figure 
I dared not see was before my eyes. 

I was frenzied with excitement; but I held 
myself steady as one holds his rifle when a buck 
comes leaping out of the forest into the prairie, 
where rifle and man have been waiting and trem- 
bling, while the hounds’ bay came nearer, nearer. 
I drew strap and tied knot of our girths, and 
doubled the knot. There must be no chafing of 
saddles, no dismounting to girth up. That was 
to be a gallop, I knew, where a man who fell to 
the rear would be too late for the fight. 

Brent, meantime, had rolled up a little stock 
of provisions in each man’s double blanket. We 
were going we knew not how far. We must be 
ready for work of many days. A moment’s 
calmness over our preparations now might save 
desolate defeat or death hereafter. We lashed 
our blankets with their contents on firmly by 
the buckskin thongs which are attached to the 
cantle of a California saddle, — the only saddle 
for such work as we — horses and men — have 
on the plains. 

“ Rifles ? ” said I. 

“No. Knives and six-shooters are enough,” 
said Brent, as cool as if our ride were an orna- 
mental promenade a cheval. “ We cannot carry 
weight or clumsy weapons on this journey.” 

We mounted and were off, with a cheer from 
lake Shamborlain and his boys. 


CAITIFi BAFFLES OGRE. 


199 


All this time, we had not noticed Armstrong. 
As we struck off southward upon the trackless 
prairie, that ghastly figure upon the gaunt white 
horse was beside us. 

“ We ’re bound on the same arrant,” whis- 
pered he. “ Only the savin ’s youm and the 
killin ’s mine.” 

Did my hope awake, now that the lady I had 
chosen for my sister was snatched from that 
monstrous ogre of Mormonism? 

Yes ; for now instant, urgent action was pos- 
sible. We could do something. Gallop, gallop, 
— that we could do. 

God speed us ! — and the caitiffs should only 
have baffled the ogre, and the lady should be 
saved. 

If not saved, avei ;ged ! 


CHAPTER XVIII. 


A GALLOP OF THREE. 

We were off, we Three on our Gallop to save 
and to slay. 

Pumps and Fulano took fire at once. They 
were ready to burst into their top speed, and gc 
off in a frenzy. 

“ Steady, steady,” cried Brent. “ Now we ’ll 
keep this long easy lope for a while, and I ’ll tell 
you my plan. 

“ They have gone to the southward, — those 
two men. They could not get away in any other 
direction. I have heard Murker say he knows 
all the country between here and the Arkansaw. 
Thank Heaven ! so do I, foot by foot.” 

I recalled the sound of galloping hoofs I had 
heard in the night to the southward. 

“ I heard them, then,” said I, “ in my watch 
after Fulano’s lariat was cut. The wind lulled, 
and there came a sound of horses, and another 
sound, which I then thought a fevered fancy of 
my own, a far-away scream of a woman.” 

Brent had been quite unimpassioned in hi* 


A GALLOP OF THREE. 


201 


manner until now. He groaned, as I spoke of 
the scream. 

“ 0 Wade ! 0 Richard ! ” he said, “ why did 
you not know the voice ? It was she. They 
have terrible hours the start.” 

He was silent a moment, looking sternly for- 
ward. Then he began again, and as he spoke, his 
iron gray edged on with a looser rein. 

“ It is well you heard them ; it makes their 
course unmistakable. We know we are on theL 
track. Seven or eight full hours ! It is long 
odds of a start. But they are not mounted as 
we are mounted. They did not ride as we shall 
ride. They had a woman to carry, and their 
mules to drive. They will fear pursuit, and push 
on without stopping. But we shall catch them ; 
we shall catch them before night, so help us 
God!” 

“You are aiming for the mountains?” I 
asked. 

“ For Luggernel Alley,” he said. 

I remembered how, in our very first interview, 
a thousand miles away at the Fulano mine, he 
had spoken of this spot. All the conversation 
then, all the talk about my horse, came back to 
me like a Delphic prophecy suddenly fulfilled. 
I made a good omen of this remembrance. 

“For Luggernel Alley,” said Brent. “Do 
you recollect my pointing out a notch in the 

9 * 


202 


JOHN BRENT. 


Sierra, yesterday, when I said I would like to 
spend a honeymoon there, if I could find a 
woman brave enough for this plains’ life ? ” 

He grew very white as he spoke, and again 
Pumps led off by a neck, we ranging up in- 
stantly. 

“They will make for the Luggernel Springs. 
The Alley is the only gate through the moun- 
tains towards the Arkansaw. If they can get 
by there, they are safe. They can strike off 
New Mexico way ; or keep on to the States out 
of the line of emigration or any Mormon pursuit. 
The Springs are the only water to be had at this 
season, without digging, anywhere in that quar- 
ter. They must go there. We are no farther 
from the spot than we were at Bridger. We 
have been travelling along the base of the tri- 
angle. We have only lost time. And, now that 
we are fairly under way, I think we might shake 
out another reef. A little faster, friends, — a 
little faster yet ! ” 

It was a vast desert level where we were 
riding. Here and there a scanty tuft of grass 
appeared, to prove that Nature had tried her 
benign experiment, and wafted seeds hither to 
let the scene be verdant, if it would. Nature 
had failed. The land refused any mantle over 
its brown desolation. The soil was disintegrated, 
igneous rock, fine and well beaten down as the 
most thoroughly laid Macadam. 


A GALLOP OF THREE- 


203 


Behind was the rolling region where the Great 
Trail passes ; before and far away, the faint blue 
of the Sierra. Not a bird sang in the hot noon ; 
not a cricket chirped. No sound except the beat 
of our horses’ hoofs on the pavement. We rode 
side by side, taking our strides together. It was 
a waiting race. The horses travelled easily. 
They learned, as a horse with a self-possessed 
rider will, that they were not to waste strength 
in rushes. “ Spend, but waste not,” — not a step, 
not a breath, in that gallop for life ! This must 
be our motto. 

We three rode abreast over the sere brown 
plain on our gallop to save and to slay. 

Far — ah, how terribly dim and distant ! — was 
the Sierra, a slowly lifting cloud. Slowly, slowly 
they lifted, those gracious heights, while we sped 
over the harsh levels of the desert. Harsh lev- 
els, abandoned or unvisited by verdancy. But 
better so; there was no long herbage to check 
our great pace over the smooth race-course ; no 
thickets here to baffle us ; no forests to mislead. 

We galloped abreast, — Armstrong at the right. 
His weird, gaunt wince held his own with the 
best of us. No whip, no spur, for that deathly 
creature. He went as if his master’s purpose 
were stirring him through and through. That 
stern intent made his sinews steel, and put an 
agony ot power into every stride. The man never 


204 


JOHN BRENT. 


stirred, save sometimes to put a hand to that 
bloody blanket bandage across his head and tem- 
ple. He had told his story, he had spoken his 
errand, he breathed not a word ; but with his 
lean, pallid face set hard, his gentle blue eyes 
scourged of their kindliness, and fixed upon those 
distant mountains where his vengeance lay, he 
rode on like a relentless fate. 

Next in the line I galloped. 0 my glorious 
black ! The great, killing pace seemed mere 
playful canter to him, — such as one might ride 
beside a timid girl, thrilling with her first free 
dash over a flowery common, or a golden beach 
between sea and shore. But from time to time 
he surged a little forward with his great shoul- 
ders, and gave a mighty writhe of his body, while 
his hind legs came lifting his flanks under me, and 
telling of the giant reserve of speed and power 
he kept easily controlled. Then his ear would 
go back, and his large brown eye, with its purple- 
black pupil, would look round at my bridle hand 
and then into my eye, saying as well as words 
could have said it, “ This is mere sport, my 
friend and master. You do not know me. I 
have stuff in me that you do not dream. Say 
the word, and I can double this, treble it. Say 
the word ! let me show you how I can spurn the 
earth.” Then, with the lightest love pressure 
on the snaffle, I would say, “ Not yet ! not yet I 


A GALLOP OF THREE. 


205 


Patience, my noble friend ! Your time will 
come.” 

At the left rode Brent, our leader. He knew 
the region ; he made the plan ; he had the hope ; 
his was the ruling passion, — stronger than broth- 
erhood, than revenge. Love made him leader 
of that galloping three. His iron-gray went 
grandly, with white mane flapping the air like 
a signal-flag of reprieve. Eager hope and kin- 
dling purpose made the rider’s face more beau- 
tiful than ever. He seemed to behold Sidney’s 
motto written on the golden haze before him, 
“ Viam aut inveniam aut faciam .” I felt my 
heart grow great, when I looked at his calm fea- 
tures, and caught his assuring smile, — a gay 
smile but for the dark, fateful resolve beneath it. 
And when he launched some stirring word of 
cheer, and shook another ten of seconds out of 
the gray’s mile, even Armstrong’s countenance 
grew less deathly, as he turned to our leader in 
silent response. Brent looked a fit chieftain for 
such a wild charge over the desert waste, with 
his buckskin hunting-shirt and leggins with flar- 
ing fringes, his otter cap and eagle’s plume, his 
bronzed face, with its close, brown beard, his 
elate head, and his seat like a centaur. 

So we galloped three abreast, neck and neck, 
hoof with hoof, steadily quickening our pace over 
the sere width of desert. We must make the 


200 


JOHN BRENT. 


most of the levels. Rougher work, cruel obsta- 
cles were before. All the wild, triumphant mu- 
sic I had ever heard came and sang in my ears 
to the flinging cadence of the resonant feet, 
tramping on hollow arches of the volcanic rock, 
over great, vacant chasms underneath. Sweet 
and soft around us melted the hazy air of Octo- 
ber, and its warm, flickering currents shook like 
a veil of gauzy gold, between us and the blue 
bloom of the mountains far away, but nearing 
now and lifting step by step. 

On we galloped, the avenger, the friend, the 
<w$i, on our errand, to save and to slay. 


CHAPTER XIX. 


FASTER. 

It came afternoon, as we rode on steadily*. 
The country grew rougher. The horses never 
flinched, but they sweated freely, and foam from 
their nostrils flecked their shoulders. By and by, 
with little pleasant admonitory puffs, a breeze 
drew down from the glimmering frosty edges of 
the Sierra and cooled us. Horses and men were 
cheered and freshened, and lifted anew to their 
work. 

We had seen and heard no life on the desert. 
Now in the broken country, a cayote or two scut- 
tied away as we passed. Sometimes a lean gray- 
wolf would skulk out of a brake, canter after us 
a little way, and then squat on his haunches, 
staring at our strange speed. Flight and chase 
he could understand, but ours was not flight for 
safety, or chase for food. Men are queer mys- 
teries to beasts. So our next companions found. 
Over the edge of a slope, bending away to a val- 
ley of dry scanty pasture at the left, a herd of 
antelopes appeared. They were close to us, 


208 


JOHN BRENT. 


within easy revolver shot. They sprang into 
graceful flight, some score of them, with tails up 
and black hoofs glancing. Presently, pausing for 
curiosity, they saw that we fled, not followed, and 
they in turn became pursuers, careering after us 
for a mile or more, until our stern business left 
their gambolling play far behind. 

We held steadily for that notch in the blue 
Sierra. The mountain lines grew sharper ; the 
country where we travelled, rougher, every stride. 
We came upon a wide tract covered with wild- 
sage bushes. These delayed and baffled us. It 
was a pigmy forest of trees, mature and complete, 
but no higher than the knee. Every dwarfed, 
stunted, gnarled bush, had the trunk, limbs, twign, 
and gray, withered foliage, all in miniature, of 
some tree, hapless but sturdy, that has had a 
weatherbeaten struggle for life on a storm-threshed 
crag by the shore, or on a granite side of a moun- 
tain, with short allowance of soil to eat and water 
to drink. Myriads of square miles of that arid 
region have no important vegetation except this 
wild-sage, or Artemisia, and a meaner brother, not 
even good to burn, the greasewood. 

One may ride through the tearing thickets of 
a forest primeval, as one may shoulder through 
a crowd of civilized barbarians at a spectacle. 
Our gallop over the top of this pigmy wood was 
as difficult as ^ and passage over the lieadp of 


FASTER. 


209 


the same crowd, tall men and short, men hatted 
with slouched hats, wash-bowls, and stove-pipes. 
It was a rough scramble. It checked our speed 
and chafed our horses. Sometimes we could 
find natural pathways for a few rods. Then 
these strayed aside or closed up, and we must 
p , unge straight on. We lost time ; moments 
we lost, more precious than if every one were 
marked by a drop in a clepsydra, and each drop 
as it fell changed itself and tinkled in the basin, 
r priceless pearl. 

“ It worries me, this delay,” I said to Brent. 

“ They lost as much — more time than we,” he 
said. 

And he crowded on, more desperately, as a 
man rides for dearer than life, — as a lover rides 
for love. 

We tore along, breaking through and over the 
sage-buslies, each man wnere best he could. 
Fulano began to show me what leaps were in 
him. I gave him his head. No bridle would 
have held him. I kept my mastery by the voice, 
or rather by the perfect identification of his 
will with mine. Our minds acted together. 
“ Save strength,” I still warned him, “ save 
strength, my frien 1, for the mountains and the 
last leaps!” 

A little pathway in the sage-bushes suddenly 
opened before me, as a lane rifts in the press 


210 


JOHN BKENT. 


of hurrying legions ’mid the crush !>f a city thor 
oughfare. I dashed on a hundred yards in ad- 
vance of my comrades. 

What was this? The bushes trampled and 
broken down, just as we in our passage were 
trampling and breaking them. What ? 

Hoof-marks in the dust ! 

“ The trail ! ” I cried, “ the trail ! ” 

They sprang toward me. Brent followed the 
line with his eye. He galloped forward, with a 
look of triumph. 

Suddenly I saw him fling himself half out of 
his saddle, and clutch at some object. Still going 
at speed, and holding on by one leg alone, after 
the Indian fashion for sport or shelter against 
an arrow or a shot, he picked up something 
from the bushes, regained his seat, and waved 
his treasure to us. We ranged up and rode 
beside him over a gap in the sage. 

A lady’s glove ! — that was what he had 
stooped to recover. An old buckskin riding 
gauntlet, neatly stitched about the wrist, and 
pinked on the wristlet. A pretty glove, strange- 
ly, almost tragically, feminine in this desolation. 
A well-worn glove, that had seen better days, 
like its mistress, but never any day so good as 
this, when it proved to us that we were on the 
sure path of rescue. 

“ I take up the gauntlet,” said Brent. ,jt Gare 
& qui le touche ! ” 


FASTER. 


211 


We said nothing more; for this unconscious 
token, this silent cry for help, made the danger 
seem more closely imminent. We pressed on. 
No flinching in any of the horses. Where we 
could, we were going at speed. Where they 
could, the horses kept side by side, nerving each 
other. Companionship sustained them in that 
terrible ride. 

And now in front the purple Sierra was grow- 
ing brown, and rising up a distinct wall, cleft 
visibly with dell, gully, ravine, and canon. The 
saw-teeth of the ridge defined themselves sharply 
into peak and pinnacle. Broad fields of cool 
snow gleamed upon the summits. 

We were ascending now all the time into 
subalpine regions. We crossed great sloping 
savannas, deep in dry, rustling grass, where a 
nation of cattle might pasture. We plunged 
through broad wastes of hot sand. We flung 
ourselves down and up the red sides of water- 
worn gullies. We took breakneck leaps across 
dry quebradas in the clay. We clattered across 
stony arroyos, longing thirstily for the gush of 
water that had flowed there not many months 
before. 

The trail was everywhere plain. No prairie 
craft was needed to trace it. Here the chase had 
gone, but a few hours ago ; here, across grassy 
slopes, trampling the grass as if a mower had 


212 


JOHN BBENT. 


passed tlial way ; here, ploughing wearily through 
the sand ; here, treading the red, crumbling clay ; 
here, breaking down the side of a bank; here, 
leaving a sharp hoof-track in the dry mud of a 
fled torrent. Everywhere a straight path, point- 
ing for that deepening gap in the Sierra, Lug- 
gernel Alley, the only gate of escape. 

Brent’s unerring judgment had divined the 
course aright. On he led, charging along the 
trail, as if he were trampling already on the car- 
casses of the pursued. On he led and we fol- 
lowed, drawing nearer, nearer to our goal. 

Our horses suffered bitterly for water. Some 
five hours we had ridden without a pause. Not 
one drop or sign of water in all that arid waste. 
The torrents had poured along the dry water- 
courses too hastily to let the scanty alders and 
willows along their line treasure up any sap 
of growth. The wild-sage bushes had plainly 
never tasted fluid more plenteous than seldom 
dewdrops doled out on certain rare festal days, 
enough to keep their meagre foliage a dusty 
gray. No pleasant streamlet lurked anywhere 
under the long dry grass of the savannas. 
The arroyos were parched and hot as rifts in 
lava. 

It became agonizing to listen to the panting 
and gasping of our horses, Their eyes gre\* 
staring and bloodshot. We suffered, ourselves, 


FASTER. 


218 


hardly less than they. It was cruel to press on. 
But we must hinder a crueller cruelty. Love 
against Time, — Yengeance against Time ! We 
must not flinch for any weak humanity to the 
noble allies that struggled on with us, without 
one token of resistance. 

Fulano suffered least. He turned his brave 
eye back, and beckoned me with his ear to listen, 
while he seemed to say : “ See, this is my En- 
durance ! I hold my Power ready still to show.” 

And he curved his proud neck, shook his mane 
like a banner, and galloped the grandest of all. 

We came to a broad strip of sand, the dry bed 
of a mountain-torrent. The trail followed up 
this disappointing path. Heavy ploughing for 
the tired horses ! How would they bear the 
rough work down the ravine yet to come ? 

Suddenly our leader pulled up and sprang 
from the saddle. 

“ Look ! ” he cried, “ how those fellows spent 
their time, and saved ours. Thank Heaven for 
this ! We shall save her, surely, now.” 

It was water ! No need to go back to Pindar 
to know that it was “ the Best.” 

They had dug a pit deep in the thirsty sand, 
and found a lurking river buried there. Nature 
never questioned what manner of men they were 
that sought. Murderers flying from vengeance 
and planning now another villain outrage, — still 


214 


JOHN BRENT. 


impartial Nature did not change her laws foi 
them. Sunshine, air, water, life, — these boons 
of hers, — she gave them freely. That higher 
boon of death, if they were to receive, it must 
be from some other power, greater than the un- 
discriminating force of Nature. 

Good luck and good omen, this well of water 
in the sand ! It proved that our chase had 
suffered as we, and had been delayed as we. 
Before they had dared to pause and waste price- 
less moments here, their horses must have been 
drooping terribly. The pit was nearly five feet 
deep. A good hour’s work, and no less, had 
dug it with such tools as they could bring. 
I almost laughed to think of the two, slowly 
bailing out the sliding sand with a tin plate, 
perhaps, and a frying-pan, while a score of miles 
away upon the desert we three were riding hard 
upon their tracks to follow them the fleeter for 
this refreshment they had left. “ Sic vos non 
vobis ! ” I was ready to say triumphantly ; but 
then I remembered the third figure in their 
group, — a woman, like a Sibyl, growing calmer 
as her peril grew, and succor seemed to with- 
draw. And the pang of this picture crushed 
back into my heart any thoughts but a mad 
anxiety and a frenzy to be driving on. 

We drank thankfully of this well by the way* 
Bide. No gentle beauty hereabouts to enchant 


FASTER 


215 


us to delay. No grand old tree, the shelter and 
the landmark of the fountain, proclaiming an 
oasis near. Nothing but bare, hot sand. But 
the water was pure, cool, and bright. It had 
come underground from the Sierra, and still re- 
membered its parent snows. We drank and 
were grateful, almost to the point of pity. Had 
we been but avengers, like Armstrong, my friend 
and I could wellnigh have felt mercy here, and 
turned back pardoning. But rescue was more 
imperative than vengeance. Our business tor- 
tured us, as with the fanged scourge of Tisi- 
phone, while we dallied. We grudged these 
moments of refreshment. Before night fell down 
the west, and night was soon to be climbing up 
the east, we must overtake, — and then ? 

I wiped the dust and spume away from Fula- 
no’s nostrils and breathed him a moment. Then 
I let him drain deep, delicious draughts from the 
stirrup-cup. He whinnied thanks and undying 
fealty, — my noble comrade ! He drank like a 
reveller. When I mounted again, he gave a 
jubilant curvet and bound. My weight was a 
feather to him. All those leagues of our hard, 
hot gallop were nothing. 

The brown Sierra here was close at hand. 
Its glittering, icy summits, above the dark and 
sheeny walls, far above the black phalanxes of 
clambering pines, stooped forward and hung over 


210 


JOHN BRENT. 


us as we rode. We were now at the foot of tha 
range, where it dipped suddenly down upon tha 
plain. The gap, our goal all day, opened befoie 
us, grand and terrible. Some giant force had 
clutched the mountains, and riven them narrowly 
apart. The wild defile gaped, and then wound 
away and closed, lost between its mighty walls, 
a thousand feet high, and bearing two brother 
pyramids of purple cliffs aloft far above the 
snow line. A fearful portal into a scene of the 
throes and agonies of earth ! and my excited eyes 
seemed to read, gilded over its entrance, in the 
dead gold of that hazy October sunshine, words 
from Dante’s inscription, — 

** Per me si va tra la perduta gente ; 

Laaciate ogni speranza roi, ch’ entrate 1 ” 

u Here we are,” said Brent, speaking hardly 
above his breath. “ This is Luggemel Alley at 
last, thank God ! In an hour, if the horses hold 
out, we shall be at the Springs ; that is, if we can 
go through this breakneck gorge at the same 
pace. My horse began to flinch a little before 
the water. Perhaps that will set him up. How 
are yours ? ” 

“ Fulano asserts that he has not begun to show 
himself yet. I may have to carry you en croupe , 
before we are done.” 

Armstrong said nothing, but pointed impa- 


tiently down the defile. The gaunt white horse 
moved on quicker at this gesture. He seemed a 
tireless machine, not flesh and blood, — a being 
like his master, living and acting by the force 
of a purpose atone. 

Our chief led the way into the canon. 


&HAPTEJ& XX . 


A HOES& 

Yes, John Brent, you were right when y>ii 
called Luggernel Alley a wonder of our conti- 
nent. 

I remember it now, — I only saw it then ; — for 
those strong scenes of nature assault the soul 
whether it will or no, fight in against affirmative 
or negative resistance, and bide their time to be 
admitted as dominant over the imagination. It 
seemed to me then that I was not noticing how 
grand the precipices, how stupendous the cleav- 
ages, how rich and gleaming the rock faces in 
Luggernel Alley. My business was not to stare 
about, but to look sharp and ride hard ; and I 
did it. 

Yet now I can remember, distinct as if I beheld 
it, every stride of that pass ; and everywhere, as I 
recall foot after foot of that fierce chasm, I see 
three men with set faces, — one deathly pale and 
wearing a bloody turban, — all galloping steadily 
on, on an errand to save and to slay. 

Terrible riding it was ! A pavement of slippery* 


A HORSE. 


219 


sheeny rock ; great beds of loose stones ; barri- 
cades of mighty boulders, where a cliff had fallen 
an aeon ago, before the days of the road-maker 
race ; crevices where an unwary foot might catch ; 
wide rifts where a shaky horse might fall, or a 
timid horseman drag him down. Terrible rid- 
ing! A pass where a calm traveller would go 
quietly picking his steps, thankful if each hour 
counted him a safe mile. 

Terrible riding ! Madness to go as we went ! 
Horse and man, any moment either might shat- 
ter every limb. But man and horse neither 
can know what he can do, until he has dared and 
done. On we went, with the old frenzy growing 
tenser. Heart almost broken with eagerness. 

No whipping or spurring. Our horses were 
a part of ourselves. While we could go, they 
would go. Since the water, they were full of 
leap again. Down in the shady Alley, too, even- 
ing had come before its time. Noon’s packing 
of hot air had been dislodged by a mountain 
breeze drawing through. Horses and men were 
braced and cheered to their work ; and in such 
riding as that, the man and the horse must think 
together and move together, — eye and hand of 
the rider must choose and command, as bravely 
as the horse executes. The blue sky was over- 
head, the red sun upon the castellated walls a 
thousand fe^t above us, the purpling chasm 


220 


JOHN BRENT. 


opened before. It was late, these were the last 
moments. But we should save the lady yet. 

“Yes,” our hearts shouted to us, “ we shall 
save her yet.” 

An arroyo, the channel of a dry torrent, fol- 
lowed the pass. It had made its way as water 
does, not straightway, but by that potent feminine 
metnod of passing under the frowning front of an 
obstacle, and leaving the dull rock staring there, 
while the wild creature it would have held is 
gliding away down the valley. This zigzag chan- 
nel baffled us ; we must leap it without check 
wherever it crossed our path. Every second now 
was worth a century. Here was the sign of 
horses, passed but now. We could not choose 
ground. We must take our leaps on that cruel 
rock wherever they offered. 

Poor Pumps ! 

He had carried his master so nobly! There 
were so few miles to do ! He had chased so 
well ; he merited to be in at the death. 

Brent lifted him at a leap across the arroyo. 

Poor Pumps! 

His hind feet slipped on the time-smoothed 
rock. He fell short. He plunged down a dozen 
feet among the rough boulders of the torrent- 
bed. Brent was out of the saddle almost before 
he struck, raising him. 

No, he would never rise again. Both his fore 


A HOBbK 


221 


legs w* re broken at the knee. He rested there, 
kneeling on the rocks where he fell. 

Brent groaned. The horse screamed horribly, 
horribly, — there is no more agonized sound, — 
and the scream went echoing high up the cliffs 
where the red sunlight rested. 

It costs a loving master much to butcher his 
brave and trusty horse, the half of his knightly 
self ; but it costs him more to hear him shriek 
in such misery. Brent drew his pistol to put- 
poor Pumps out of pain. 

Armstrong sprang down and caught his hand. 

u Stop ! ” he said in his hoarse whisper. 

He had hardly spoken, since we started. My 
nerves were so strained, that this mere ghost of 
a sound rang through me like a death yell, a 
grisly cry of merciless and exultant vengeance. 
I seemed to hear its echoes, rising up and swelling 
in a flood of thick uproar, until they burst over 
the summit of the pass and were wasted in the 
crannies of the towering mountain-flanks above. 

“ Stop ! ” whispered Armstrong. “ No shoot- 
ing ! They ’ll hear. The knife ! ” 

He held out his knife to my friend. 

Brent hesitated one heart-beat Could he stain 
his hand with his faithful servant’s blood ? 

Pumps screamed again. 

Armstrong snatched the knife and drew it 
across the throat of the crippled horse. 


222 


JOHN BBENf. 


Poor Pumps! He sank and died without a 
moan. Noble martyr in the old, heroic cause ; 

I caught the knife from Armstrong. I cut the 
thong of my girth. The heavy California sad- 
dle, with its macheers and roll of blankets, fell 
to the ground. I cut off my spurs. They had 
never yet touched Fulano’s flanks. He stood 
beside me quiet, but trembling to be off. 

“Now Brent! up behind me!” I whispered, — 
for the awe of death was upon us. 

I mounted. Brent sprang up behind. I ride 
light for a tall man. Brent is the slightest body 
of an athlete I ever saw. 

Fulano stood steady till we were firm in our 
seats. 

Then he tore down the defile. 

Here was that vast reserve of power ; here the 
tireless spirit; here the hoof striking true as a 
thunderbolt, where the brave eye saw footing; 
here that writhing agony of speed ; here the 
great promise fulfilled, the great heart thrilling 
to mine, the grand body living to the beating 
heart. Noble Fulano ! 

I rode with a snaffle. I left it hanging loose. 
I did not check or guide him. He saw all. He 
knew all. All was his doing. 

We sat firm, clinging as we could, as we must. 
Fulano dashed along the resounding pass. 

Armstrong pressed after, — the gaunt white 


A HORSE 


223 


horse struggled to emulate his leader. Presently 
we lost them behind the curves of the Alley. 
No other horse that ever lived could have held 
with the black in that headlong gallop to save. 

Over the slippery rocks, over the sheeny pave- 
ment, plunging through the loose stones, stagger- 
ing over the barricades, leaping the arroyo, down, 
up, on, always on, — on went the horse, we 
clinging as we might. 

It seemed one beat of time, it seemed an eter- 
nity, when between the ring of the hoofs I heard 
Brent whisper in my ear. 

“ We are there.” 

The crags flung apart, right and left. I saw a 
sylvan glade. I saw the gleam of gushing water. 

Fulano dashed on, uncontrollable ! 

There they were, — the Murderers. 

Arrived but one moment ! 

The lady still bound to that pack-mule brand- 
ed A. & A. 

Murker just beginning to unsaddle. 

Larrap not dismounted, in chase of the other 
animals as they strayed to graze. 

The men heard the tramp and saw us, as we 
sprang into the glade 

Both my hands were at the bridle. 

Brent, grasping my waist with one arm, was 
awkward with his pistol. 

Murker saw us first. He snatched his six-shoot- 
er and fired. 


224 


JOHN BRENT. 


Brent shook with a spasm. His pistol arm 
dropped. 

Before the murderer could cock again, Fulano 
was upon him! 

He was ridden down. He was beaten, tram- 
pled down upon the grass, — crushed, abolished. 

We disentangled ourselves from the m$lee. 

Where was the other? 

The coward, without firing a shot, was spur- 
ring Armstrong’s Flathead horse blindly up the 
canon, whence we had issued. 

We turned to Murker. 

Fulano was up again, and stood there shudder- 
ing. But the man ? 

A hoof had battered in the top of his skull ; 
blood was gushing from his mouth ; his ribs were 
broken ; all his body was a trodden, massacred 
carcass. 

He breathed once, as we lifted him. 

Then a tranquil, childlike look stole over his 
face, — that well-known look of the weary body, 
thankful that the turbulent so il has gone. Mur- 
ker was dead. 

Fulano, and not we, had been executioner. 
His was the stain of blood. 


CHAPTER Xli 


LUGGEBNEL SPRINGS. 

“ I am shot,” gasped Brent, and sank down 
fainting. 

Which first ? the lady, or my friend, slain per- 
haps for her sake? 

“ Her ! see to her ! ” he moaned. 

I unbound her from the saddle. I could not 
utter a word for pity. She essayed to speak ; 
but her lips only moved. She could not change 
her look. So many hours hardening herself to 
repel, she could not soften yet, even to accept 
my offices with a smile of gratitude. She was 
cruelly cramped by her lashings to the rough 
pack-saddle, rudely cushioned with blankets. But 
the horror had not maddened her; the torture 
had not broken her; the dread of worse had 
not slain her. She was still unblenching and 
indomitable. And still she seemed to rule her 
fate with quiet, steady eyes, — gray eyes with 
violet lights. 

I carried her a few steps to the side of a jubi 

10* O 


226 


JOHN BRENT. 


lant fountain lifting beneath a rock, and left hei 
there to Nature, kindliest leech. 

Then I took a cup of that brilliant water to 
my friend, my brother. 

“ I can die now,” he said feebly. 

“There is no death in you. You have won 
the right to live. Keep a brave heart. Drink ! ” 

And in that exquisite spot, that fair glade of 
the sparkling fountains, I gave the noble fellow 
long draughts of sweet refreshment. The res- 
cued lady trailed herself across the grass and 
knelt beside us. My horse, still heaving with 
his honorable gallop, drooped his head over the 
group. A picture to be remembered ! 

Who says that knighthood is no more ? Who 
says the days of chivalry are past? Who says 
it, is a losel. 

Brent was roughly, but not dangerously, shot 
along the arm. The bullet had ploughed an ugly 
path along the muscles of the fore-arm and up- 
per-arm, and was lodged in the shoulder. A bad 
wound ; but no bones broken. If he could but 
have rest and peace and surgery! But if not, 
after the fever of our day, after the wearing 
anguish of our doubtful gallop ; if not ? — 

Ellen Clitheroe revived in a moment, when 
she saw another needed her care. Woman’s 
gentle duty of nurse found her ready for its 
offices. My blundering good-will gave place will- 


LUGGERNEL SPRINGS. 


227 


tngly to her fine-fingered skilfulness. She forgo k 
her own weariness, while she was magnetizing 
away the pangs of the wounded man by her 
delicate touch. 

He looked at me, and smiled with total content. 

“ My father?” asked the lady, faintly, as if she 
dreaded the answer. 

“ Safe ! ” said I. “ Free from the Mormons, 
lie is waiting for you with a friend.” 

Her tears began to flow. She was busy ban- 
daging the wound. All was silent about us, ex- 
cept the pleasant gurgle of the fountains, when 
we heard a shot up the defile. 

The sharp sound of a pistol-shot came leaping 
down the narrow chasm, flying before the pur- 
suit of its own thundering echoes. Those grand 
old walls of the Alley, facing each other there 
for the shade and sunshine of long, peaceful 
aeons, gilded by the glow of countless summers, 
splashed with the gray of antique lichens on their 
purple fronts, draped for unnumbered Octobers 
with the scarlet wreaths of frost-ripened trail- 
ers, — those solemn walls standing there in old 
silence, unbroken save by the uproar of winter 
floods, or by the humming flight of summer 
winds, or the louder march of tempests crowding 
on, — those silent walls, written close with the 
record of God’s handiwork in the long cycles of 
creation, lifted up their indignant voices when 


JOHN BBENT. 


the shot within proclaimed to them the undying 
warfare of man with man, and, roaring after, 
they hurled that murderous noise forth from 
their presence. The quick report sprang out 
from the chasm into the quiet glade, where the 
lady knelt, busy with offices of mercy, and there 
it lost its vengeful tone, and was blended with 
the rumble of the mingled rivulets of the springs. 
The thundering echoes paused within, slowly 
proclaiming quiet up from crag to crag, until 
one after another they whispered themselves to 
silence. No sound remained, save the rumble 
of the stream, as it flowed away down the open- 
ing valley into the haze, violet under gold, of 
that warm October sunset. 

I sprang up when I heard the shot, and stood 
on the alert. There were two up the Alley; 
which, after the shot, was living, and which 
dead? 

Not many moments had passed, when I heard 
hoofs coming, and Armstrong rode into view. 
The gaunt white horse galloped with the long, 
careless fling I had noticed all day. He moved 
machine-like, as if without choice or volition of 
his own, a horse commissioned to carry a Fate. 
Larrap’s stolen horse trotted along by his old 
master. 

Armstrong glanced at Murker’ s body !ying 
there, a battered mass. 


LUGGERNEL SPRINGS. 


229 


“ Both ! ” he whispered. “ The other was 
6ent right into my hands to be put to death. 
I knew all the time it would be sent to me to 
do killing. He was spurring up the Alley on 
my own horse. He snapped at me. My pistol 
did not know how to snap. See here ! ” 

And he showed me, hanging from his saddle- 
horn, that loathliest of all objects a man’s eyes 
ever lighted upon, a fresh scalp. It sickened 
me. 

“ Shame ! ” said I. “ Do you call yourself a 
man, to bring such a tiling into a lady’s pres- 
ence ? ” 

“It was rather mean to take the fellow’s 
hair,” says Armstrong. “ I don’t believe broth- 
er Bill would have did it. But I felt orful ugly, 
when I saw that fat, low-lived devil, and thought 
of my brother, a big, hul-hearted man as never 
gave a bad word to nobody, and never held on 
to a dollar or a slug when ayry man wanted it 
more ’n him. Come, I ’ll throw the nasty thing 
away, if you say so.” 

“ Help me drag off tliis corpse, and we ’ll bury 
man and scalp together,” I said. 

We buried him at the gate of the Alley, under 
a great cairn of stones. 

“God forgive them both,” said I, as I flung 
the last stone, “ that they were brutes, and not 
men.” 


230 


JOHN BRENT. 


“ Brutes they was, stranger,” says Armstrong 
“but these things is ordered somehow. I al- 
low your pardener and you is glad to get that 
gal out of a Mormon camp, ef it did cost him a 
horse and both on you an all day’s tremble. 
Men don’t ride so hard, and look so wolfish, as 
you two men have did, onless their heart is into 
it.” 

“ It is, indeed, strange,” said I, rather think- 
ing aloud than addressing my companion, “ that 
this brute force should have achieved for us by 
outrage what love failed in. Fate seems to have 
played Brute against Brute, that Love might 
step between and claim the victory. The lady 
is safe ; but the lover may have won her life and 
lost his own.” 

“ Look here, stranger,” says Armstrong, u part 
of this is yourn,” pointing to the money-belt, 
which, with the dead man’s knife and pistol, he 
had taken from the corpse. “Halves of this 
and the other fellow’s plunder belongs to your 
party.” 

I suppose I looked disgusted ; yet I have seen 
gentle ladies wearing boastfully brooches that 
their favorite heroes had taken from Christian 
men dead on the field at Inkermann, and shawls 
of the loot of Delhi cover many shoulders that 
would shudder over a dead worm. 

“I ’m not squimmidge,” said Armstrong 


LUGGERNEL SPRINGS. 


231 


“ It ’s my ov n and my brother’s money in them 
belts. I ’ll count that out, and then, ef you wont 
take your part, I ’ll pass it over to the gal’s fa- 
ther. I allowed from signs ther was, that that 
thar boss Mormon had about tuk the old man’s 
pile. Most likely these shiners they won last 
night is some of the very sufferins Sizzum got 
from him. It ’s right he should hev ’em back.” 

I acknowledged the justice of this restitution. 

u Now,” said Armstrong again, “ you want 
to stay by your friend and the gal, so I ’ll take 
one of the pack mules and fetch your two sad- 
dles along before dark lights down. It was too 
bad to lose that iron gray ; but there ’s more ’n 
two horses into the hide of that black of yourn. 
He was the best man of the lot for the goin’, the 
savin’, and the killin’. Stranger, I ’ve ben byin’ 
and sellin’ and breedin’ kettrypids ever since 
I was raised myself; but I allow I never seed 
a horse till I seed him lunge off with you two 
on his back.” 

Armstrong rode up the Alley again. Another 
man he was since his commission of vengeance 
had been accomplished. In those lawless wilds, 
vendetta takes the place of justice, becomes jus- 
tice indeed. Armstrong, now that his stern duty 
was done, was again the kindly, simple follow 
nature made him, the type of a class between 
pioneer and settler, and a strong, brave, effective 


232 


JOHN BRENT. 


class it is. It was the education, in youth, in 
the sturdy habits of this class, that made oui 
Washington the manly chief he was. 

I returned to my friends by the Springs. 

Emerging from the austere grandeur of the 
Alley, dim with the shadows of twilight, the 
scene without was doubly sweet and almost do- 
mestic. The springs, four or five in number, 
and one carrying with it a thread of hot steam, 
sprang vigorously out along the bold edges of the 
cliffs. All the ground was verdure, — green, ten- 
der, and brilliant, a feast to the eyes after long 
staring over sere deserts. The wild creatures that 
came there every day for refreshment, and per- 
haps for intoxication in the aerated tipple of the 
Champagne Spring, kept the grass grazed short 
as the turf of a park. Two great spruce-trees, 
each with one foot under the rocks, and one 
edging fountainward, stood, pillar under pyra- 
mid. Some wreaths of drooping creepers, float- 
ing from the crags, had caught and clung, and 
so gone winding among the dark foliage of the 
twin trees ; and now their leaves, ripened by 
autumn, shook amid the dusky green like an 
alighting of orioles. Except for the spruces 
posted against the cliffs, the grassy area of an 
acre about the springs was clear of other growth 
than grass. Below, the rivulet disappeared in 
a green thicket, and farther down were large 


LCGGERNEL SPRINGS. 


233 


cottonwoods, and one tall stranger tree, the femi- 
nine presence of a drooping elm, as much un- 
looked for here as the sweet, delicate woman 
whom strange chances had brought to dignify 
and grace the spot. This stranger elm filled my 
heart with infinite tender memories of home, and 
of those early boyish days when Brent and I 
lay under the Berkeley College elms, or strayed 
beneath the elm-built arches up and down the 
avenues of that fair city clustered round the 
College. In those bright days, before sorrow 
came to him, or to me my harsh necessity, we 
two in brotherhood had trained each other to 
high thoughts of courtesy and love, — a dreamed- 
of love for large heroic souls of women, when 
our time of full-completed worthiness should 
come. And his time had come. And yet it 
might be that the wounded knight would never 
know his lady, as much loving as beloved; it 
might be that he would never find a sweeter 
soothing in her touch, than the mere touch of 
gratitude and common charity ; it might be that 
he would fever away his beautiful life with the 
fever of his wound, and never feel the holy 
quiet of a lover’s joy when the full bliss of love 
returned is his. 

I gave a few moments to the horses and mules 
They were still to be unsaddled. Healthy Fu- 
iano had found his own way to water, and now 


28 * 


JOHN BRENT. 


was feasting on the crisp, short grass along the 
outlet of the Champagne Spring, tickling his nose 
with the bubbles of gas as they sped by. Sup, 
Fulano ! This spot was worth the gallop to see 
Sup, Fulano, the brave, and may no stain of this 
day’s righteous death-doing rest upon your guilt- 
less life ! 

Brent was lying under the spruces, drowsing 
with fatigue, reaction, and loss of blood. Miss 
Clitheroe sat by watching him. These fine be- 
ings have an exquisitely tenacious vitality. The 
happiness of release had suddenly kindled all 
her life again. As she rose to meet me, there 
was light in her eyes and color in her cheeks. 
Her whole soul leaped up and spoke its large 
gratitude in a smile. 

“My dear friend,” she said; and then, wPh 
sudden tearfulness, “ God be thanked for youi 
heroism ! ” 

“ God be thanked ! ” I repeated. “We have 
been strangely selected and sent, — you from 
England, my friend and I, and my horse, the 
hero of the day, from the Pacific, — to interfere 
here in each other’s lives.” 

“It would seem romance, but for the sharp 
terror of this day, coming after the long agony 
of my journey with my poor, errant father.” 

“ A sharp terror, indeed ! ” 

* But only terror ! ” and a glow of maidenly 


LUGGERNEL SPRINGS. 


2^5 

thankfulness passed over her face. “ Except one 
moment of rough usage, when I slipped away 
my gag and screamed as they carried me off, 
those men were considerate to me. They never 
halted except to dig a well in the sand of a river- 
bed. I learned from their talk that they had 
made an attempt to steal your horses in the 
night, and, failing, dreaded lest you, and espe- 
cially Mr. Brent, would follow them close. So 
they rode hard. They supposed that, when I was 
found missing, whoever went in pursuit, and you 
they always feared, would lose time along the 
emigrant road, searching eastward.” 

“We might have done so; but we had our- 
selves ridden off that way in despair of aiding 
you,” — and I gave her a sketch of the events 
of the morning. 

“ It was the hope of succor from you that sus- 
tained me. After what your friend said to me 
last evening, I knew he could not abandon me, 
if he had power to act.” And she looked very 
tenderly at the sleeper, — a look to repay him 
for a thousand wounds. 

“Did you find my glove?” she asked. 

“He has it. That token assured us. Ah! 
you should have seen that dear wounded boy, 
our leader, when he knew we were not astray.” 

I continued my story of our pursuit, — the 
lulling beat of the stream undertoning my word* 


JOHN BRENT. 


286 

in the still twilight. When I came to thnt last 
wild burse of Fulano, and told how his heroic 
charge had fulfilled his faithful ardor of the day, 
she sprang up, thrilled out of all weariness, and 
ran to the noble fellow, where he was taking his 
dainty banquet by the brookside. 

She flung her arms around his neck and rested 
her head upon his shoulder. Locks of her black 
hair, escaping into curls, mingled with his mane. 

Presently Miss Clitheroe seemed to feel a 
maidenly consciousness that her caresses of the 
horse might remind the horse’s master that he 
was not unworthy of a like reward. She re- 
turned to my friend. He was stirring a little in 
pain. She busied herself about him tenderly, 
and yet with a certain distance of manner, build 
ing a wall of delicate decorum between him and 
herself. Indeed, from the beginning of our ac- 
quaintance yesterday, and now in this meeting 
of to-day, she had drawn apart from Brent, and 
frankly approached me. Her fine instinct knew 
the brother from the lover. 

Armstrong presently rode out again. 

When he saw his brother’s sorrel horse feeding 
with the others, he wept like a child. 

We two, the lady and I, were greatly touched. 

“ I ’ve got a daughter myself, to home to the 
Umpqua,” said Armstrong, turning to Miss Cli- 
theroe; “jest about vour settin’ up, and jest 


LJGGERNEL SPRINGS. 


237 


about as nany corn shuckins old. Ellen ii 
her name ” 

“ Ellen is my name.” 

“That’s pretty” (pooty he pronounced it). 
“Well, I’ll stand father to you, just as ef you 
was my own gal. I know what a gal in trouble 
wants more ’n young fellows can.” 

Ellen Clitheroe gave her hand to Armstrong 
in frank acceptance of his offer. He became the 
paternal element in our party, — he protecting 
her and she humanizing him. 

We lighted our camp-fire and supped heartily. 
Except for Brent’s uneasy stir and unwilling 
moans, we might have forgotten the deadly busi- 
ness of that day. 

We made the wounded man comfortable as 
might be with blankets, under the sheltering 
spruces. After all, if he must be hurt, he could 
not have fallen upon a better hospital than the 
pure open air of this beautiful shelter ; and surely 
nowhere was a gentler nurse than his. 

Armstrong and I built the lady a bower, a lit- 
tle lodge of bushes from the thicket. 

Then he and I kept watch and watch beneath 
the starlight. 

Sleeping or waking, our souls and our bodies 
thanked God for this peace of a peaceful night, 
after the terror and tramp and battle of that 
trembling day. 


CHAPTER XXII. 


CHAMPAGNE. 

% 

How soundly I slept, in my sleeping hours, 
after our great victory, — Courage over Space, 
Hope over Time, Love over Brutality, the Heav- 
enly Powers over the Demon Forces ! 

I sprang up, after my last morning slumber, 
with vitality enough for my wounded friend and 
myself. I felt that I could carry double responsi- 
bility, as Fulano had carried double weight. God 
has given me the blessing of a great, vigorous 
life. My body has always been a perfect machine 
for my mind’s work, such as that may be ; and 
never a better machine, with every valve, crank, 
joint, and journal in good order, than on that 
dawn at Luggernel Springs. 

If I had not awaked alive from top to toe, from 
tip to tip, from end to end, alive in muscle, 
nerve, and brain, the Luggernel Champagne 
Spring would have put life into me. 

Champagne of Rheims and Epemay ! Bah ! 

Avaunt, Veuve Clicquot, thou elderly Hebe ! 
Avaunt, with thy besugared, begassed, bedevilled, 


CHAMPAGNE. 


239 


becorked, be wired, poptious manufacture ! Some 
day, at a dull dinner-party, I will think of the* 
and poison myself with thy poison, that I may be- 
come deaf to the voice of the vulgar woman to 
whom some fatal hostess may consign me. Bui 
now let no thought of Champagne, even of that 
which the Veuve may keep for her moment most 
lacrymose of “ veuvage,” interfere 'with my re- 
membrance of the Luggernel Spring. 

Champagne to that ! More justly a Satyr to 
Hyperion ; a stage-moon to Luna herself ; an Old- 
World peach to a peach of New Jersey ; a Dem- 
ocratic Platform to the Declaration of Indepen- 
dence ; a pinching, varnished boot to a winged 
sandal of Mercury ; Faustina to Charlotte Corday ; 
a senatorial speech to a speech of Wendell Phil- 
lips ; anything crude, base, and sham to anything 
fine, fresh, and true. 

Ah, poor Kissingen ! Alas, unfragrant Sha- 
ron ! Alack, stale Saratoga ! Ichabod ! Adieu 
to you all when the world knows the virtues of 
Luggernel ! 

But never when the O-fortunatus-nimium world 
has come into this new portion of its heritage, — 
never when Luggernel is renowned and fashion 
blooms about its brim, — never when gentlemen 
of the creamiest cream in the next half-century 
offer to ladies as creamy beakers bubbling full 
of that hypernectareous tipple, — never will any 


240 


JOHN BRENT. 


finer body or fairer soul of a woman be seen there 
about than her whom I served that morning. 
And, indeed, among the heroic gentlemen of the 
riper time to come, I cannot dream that any will 
surpass in all the virtues and courtesies of the 
cavalier my friend John Brent, now dismounted 
and lying there wounded and patient. 

Oranges belpre breakfast are good. There be 
who on awakening gasp for the cocktail. And 
others, who, fuddled last night, are limp in their 
lazy beds, till soda-water lends them its fizzle. 
Eye-openers these of moderate calibre. But, with 
all the vigorous vitality I have claimed, perhaps 
I might still have remembered yesterday with 
its Gallop of Three, its suspense, its eager dash 
and its certainty, and remembered them with 
new anxieties for to-day, except for my morning 
draught of exhilaration from the unbottled, un- 
mixed sources of Luggernel. Thanks La Gre- 
nouille, rover of the wilderness, for thy froggish 
instinct and this blissful discovery ! 

I stooped and lapped. Long ago Gideon Ba- 
rakson recognized the thorough-going braves bo- 
cause they took their water by the throatful, not 
by the palmful. And when I had lapped enough, 
and let the great bubbles of laughing gas burst 
in my face, I took a beaker, — to be sure it was 
battered tin, ana had hung at the belt of a das- 
tard, — a beaker of that “ cordial julep ” to my 


CHAMPAGNE. 


241 


friend. He was awake and looking about him, 
seeking for some one. 

“ Come to your gruel, old fellow ! ” said 1. 

He drank the airy water and sat up revived. 

“ It is like swallowing the first sunbeam on the 
crown of a snow-peak,” he said. 

Miss Clitheroe dawned upon us with this. She 
came forth from her lodge, fresh and full of 
cheer. 

Brent stopped looking about for some one. 
The One had entered upon the scene. 

I dipped for her also that poetry in a tin pot. 

“ This,” said she, “ is finer balm than the 
enchanted cup of Comus ; never did lips touch a 
draught 

‘ To life so friendly, or so cool to thirst.’ 

To-day my life is worthy of this nepenthe. My 
dear friend, this is the first night of peaceful, 
hopeful rest I have had, since my poor father was 
betrayed into his delusion. Thank you and God 
for it ! ” 

And again her eyes filled with happy tears, 
and she knelt by her patient. While she was 
tenderly and deftly renewing the bandages, Arm- 
strong stood by, and inspected the wound in 
silence. Presently he walked off and called me 
to help him with our camp-fire. 

“ Pretty well ploughed up, that arm of his’n," 
«&id he. 

11 *» 


242 


JOHN BRENT. 


“ I have seen amputation performed for loss.” 

“ Then I ’m dum glad there ’s no sawbone* 
about. I don’t believe Nater means a man’s 
leg or arm to go, until she breaks the solid 
bone, so that it ain’t to be sot nohow. But 
what do you allow to do? Lamm ahead or 
squat here?” 

“You are the oldest; you have most expe- 
rience ; I will take your advice.” 

“ October is sweet as the smile of a gal when 
she hears that her man has made fifteen hundred 
dollars off the purceeds of a half-acre of onions, 
to the mines ; but these yer fall storms is reg’lar 
Injuns ; they light down ’thout sendin’ on hand- 
bills. We ought to be p’intin’ for home if we 
can.” 

“ But Brent’s wound ! Can he travel ? ” 

“ Now, about that wound, there ’s two ways of 
lookin’ at it. We ken stop here, or we ken poot 
for Laramie. I allow that it oughter take that 
arm of his’n a month to make itself right. Now 
in a month ther ’ll be p’r’aps three feet of snow 
whar we stand.” 

“We must go on.” 

“Besides, lookerhere! Accordin’ to me the 
feelin’s mean suthin’, when a man’s got any. 
He ’ll be all the time worryin’ about the gal till 
he gets her to her father. It ’s my judgment 
she’d better never see the old man agin ; but I 


CHAMPAGNE. 


243 


would n’t want my Ellen to quit me, ef I was an 
unhealthy gonoph like him. Daughters ought to 
stick closer ’n twitch-grass to their fathers, and 
sons to their mothers, and she ain’t one to knock 
off lovin’ anybody she ’s guv herself to love. 
No, she ’s one of the stiddy kind, — stiddy as the 
stars. He knows that, that there pardener of 
yourn knows it, and his feelin’s won’t give his 
arm no rest until she ’s got the old man to take 
care of and follow off on his next streak. So 
we must poot for Laramie, live or die. Thar *11 
be a doctor there. Ef we ken find the way, it 
should n’t take us more ’n ten days. I ’ll poot 
him on Bill’s sorrel, jest as gentle a horse as Bill 
was that rode him, and we ’ll see ef we hain’t 
worked out the bad luck out of all of us, for one 
while.” 

Armstrong’s opinion was only my own, ex- 
pressed Oregonly. We went on preparing break- 
fast. 

“ That there A. & A. mule,” says Armstrong, 
“ was Bill’s and mine, and this stuff in the packs 
was ours. I don’t know what the fellers did 
with the two mean mustangs they was ridin’ 
when they found us fust on Bear River, — used 
’em up, I reckon.” 

Here Brent hailed us cheerily. 

“ Look alive there, you two cooks ! We idlon 
here want to be travelling.” 


244 


JOHN BRENT. 


“ I told you so,” said Armstrong. “ He un 
derstands this business jest as well as we do. 
He ’ll go till he draps. Thar ’s grit into him, ef 
I know grit.” 

Yes ; but when I saw him sit still with his 
back against the spruce-tree, and remembered his 
exuberant life of other days, I desponded. He 
soon took occasion to speak to me apart. 

“Dick,” said he, “you see how it is. I am 
not good for much. If we were alone, you and 
I might settle here for a month or so, and write 
‘ Bubbles from the Briinnen.’ But there is a lady 
in the case. It is plain where she belongs. I 
know every inch of the way to Laramie. I can 
take you through in a week” — he paused and 
quavered a little, as he continued — “if I live. 
But don’t look so anxious. I shall.” 

“ It would be stupid for you to die now, John 
Brent the Lover, with the obstacles cut away and 
an heroic basis of operations.” 

“ A wounded man, perhaps a dying man, has 
no business with love. I will never present her 
my services and ask pay. But, Dick, if I should 
wear out, you will know what to say to her for 
me.” 

At this she joined us, her face so illumined 
with resolution and hope that we both kindled. 
All doubt skulked away from her presence. 
Brent was nerved to rise and walk a few steps 


CHAMPAGNE. 


245 

to the campfire, supported by her ann and 

mine. 

Armstrong had breakfast ready, such as it was. 
And really, the brace of wood grouse he had 
shot that morning, not a hundred yards from 
camp, were not unworthy of a lady’s table, 
though they had never made journey in a 
crowded box, over a slow railroad, from Chicago 
to New York, in a January thaw, and then been 
bought at half price of a street pedler, a few 
hours before they dropped to pieces. 

We grouped to depart. 

“ I shall remember all this for scores of 
sketches,” said MisS Clitheroe. 

And indeed there was material. The rock* 
behind threading away and narrowing into the 
dim gorge of the Alley ; the rushing fountains, 
one with its cloud of steam; the two great 
spruces ; the greensward ; the thickets ; and 
above them a far-away glimpse of a world, all 
run to top and flinging itself up into heaven, a 
tumult of crag and pinnacle. So much for the 
scenery. And for personages, there was Arm- 
strong, with his head turbaned, saddling the 
white machine ; the two mules, packed and taking 
their last nibbles of verdure ; Miss Clitheroe, in 
her round hat and with a green blanket rigged 
as riding-skirt, mounted upon the sturdy roan ; 
Brent resting on my shoulder, and stepping or 


246 


JOHN BRENT. 


my knee, as he climbed painfully to his seat on 
the tall sorrel ; Don Fulano waiting, proud and 
eager. And just as we were starting, a stone fell 
from overhead into the water ; and looking up, 
we saw a bighorn studying us from the crags, 
wishing, no doubt, that his monster horns were 
ears to comprehend our dialect. 

I gave the party their stirrup-cup from the 
Champagne Spring. The waters gurgled adieu. 
Rich sunrise was upon the purple gates of the 
pass. We struck a trail through the thicket. 

Good bye to the Luggernel Springs and Lug* 
gernel Alley i to that scene of tragedy and tra 
gedy escaped ! 


CHAPTER XXIII. 


*N IDYL OF THE ROCKYS. 

I shai^v make short work of our journey to 
Laramie. 

We bent northeastwardly by ways known to 
our leader, — alas! leader no more. He could 
guide, but no more gallop in front and beckon 
on the cavalcade. 

It was a grand journey. A wild one, and 
rough for a lady. But this lady was made of 
other stuff than the mistresses of lapdogs. 

We crossed the backbone of the continent, 
climbing up the clefts between the ragged verte- 
brae, and over the top of that meandering spine, 
fleshed with great grassy mounds ; then plunging 
down again among the rifts and glens. 

A brilliant quartette ours would have been, 
but for my friend’s wound. Four people, all 
with fresh souls and large and peculiar expe- 
rience. 

Except for my friend’s wound ! 

My friend, closer than a brother, how I felt for 
him every mile of that stern journey ! He nevei 


248 


JOHN BRENT. 


complained. Only once he said to me, “ Bodilj 
agony has something to teach, I find, as well as 
mental.” 

Never one word of his suffering, except that. 
He wore slowly away. Every day he grew a 
little weaker in body ; but every day the strong 
spirit lifted the body to its work. He must live 
to be our guide, that he felt. He must be cheer- 
ful, gay even, lest the lady he had saved should 
too bitterly feel that her safety was daily paid 
for by his increasing agony. Every day that 
ichor of love baptized him with new life. He 
breathed love and was strong. But it was love 
confined to his own consciousness. Wounded, 
and dying perhaps, unless his life could beat 
time by a day or an hour, he would not throw 
any share of his suffering on another, on her, 
by calling for the sympathy which a woman 
gives to her lover. 

Did she love him ? Ah ! that is the ancient 
riddle. Only the Sphinx herself can answer. 
Those fair faces of women, with their tender 
smiles, their quick blushes, their starting tears, 
still wear a mask until the moment comes for 
unmasking. If she did not love him, — this 
man of all men most lovable, this feminine soul 
in the body of a hero, this man who had spilled 
his blood for her, whose whole history had 
trained him for those crowning hours of a chiv- 


AN IDYL OF THE ROCKYS. 


249 


alric life when the lover led our Gallop of Three ; 
if she did not love him, she must be, I thought, 
some bloodless creature of a type other than 
human, an angel and no woman, a creature 
not yet truly embodied into the body of love 
we seemed to behold. 

She was sweetly tender to him ; but that the 
wound, received for her sake, merited ; that was 
hardly more than the gracious thankfulness she 
lavished upon us all. What an exquisite wo- 
man ! How calmly she took her place, lofty and 
serene, above all the cloudy atmosphere of such 
a bewildering life as hers had been ! How large 
and deep and mature the charity she had drawn, 
even so young, from the strange contrasts of her 
history ! How her keen observation of a woman 
of genius had grasped and stored away the dia- 
mond, or the dust of diamond, in every drift 
across her life ! 

She grew more beautiful daily. Those weary 
days when, mile after dreary mile, the listless 
march of the Mormon caravan bore her farther 
and farther away into hopeless exile, were gone 
forever. She breathed ruddy hope now. Before, 
she had filtered hope from every breath and only 
taken the thin diet of pale endurance. All fu 
ture possibility of trial, after her great escape, 
seemed nothing. She was confident of Brent’s 
instant recovery, with repose, and a surgeon 
u * 


250 


JOHN BRENT 


more skilful than she, at Fort Laramie. She 
was sure that now her father’s wandering life 
was over, and that he would let her find him a 
home and win him a living in some quiet region 
of America, where all his sickly fancies would 
pass away, and his old age would glide serenely. 

It would be long, too long, for the movement 
of this history, should I attempt to detail the 
talks and minor adventures of that trip by which 
the character of all my companions became bet- 
ter known to me. 

For the wounded man’s sake we made length- 
ened rests at noonday, and camped with the ear- 
liest coming of twilight. Those were the moon- 
light nights of brilliant October. How strange 
and solemn and shadowy the mountains rose 
about our bivouacs ! It was the poetry of camp- 
life, and to every scene by a fountain, by a tor- 
rent, in a wild dell, on a mountain meadow with 
a vision of a snow-peak watching us all the starry 
night and passing through rosiness into splendor 
at sunrise, — to every scene, stem or fair, our 
comrade gave the poetry of a woman’s Dresence 
and a woman’s fine perception of the minuter 
charm of nature. 

And then — think of it ! — she had a genius 
for cookery. I have known this same power in 
other fine poetic and artistic beings. She had a 
genius for imaginative cookery, — a rich inheri* 


AN IDYL OF THE BOCKYS. 


251 


tance from her father’s days of poverty and 
coal-mining. She insisted upon her share of 
camp-duty; and her great gray eyes were often 
to be seen gravely fixed upon a frying-pan, or 
watching a roasting bird, as it twirled slowly 
before the fire, with a strip of pork featly dis- 
posed overhead to baste that succulent revolver ; 
while Brent, poor fellow, lay upon the grass, 
wrapped in blankets, slowly accumulating force 
for the next day’s journey, and watched her with 
wonderment and delight that she could conde- 
scend to be a household goddess. 

“ Ther ain’t her ikwill to be scared up,” would 
Armstrong say on these occasions. “ I ’m gittin’ 
idees to make my Ellen the head woman on 
all the Umpqua. I wish I had her along; for 
she ’s a doughcyle gal, and takes nat’ral to pooty 
notions in thinkin’ and behavior and fixin’ up 
things ginerally.” 

Armstrong became more and more the pater- 
nal element in our party. Memory of the Ellen 
on the Umpqua made him fatherly thoughtful for 
the Ellen here, a wanderer across the Rocky 
Mountains. And she returned more than he 
gave, in the sweet civilizing despotism of a lady. 
That grizzly turban presently disappeared from 
his head. Decorous bandages replaced it. With 
that token went from him the sternness. He 
was a frank, honest, kindly fellow, shrewd and 


252 


JOHN BRENT. 


unflinching, but one who would never have lifted 
his hand against a human being except for that 
great, solemn duty of an exterminating ven 
geance. That done, he was his genial self again. 
We never tired of his tales of plains and Oregon 
life, told in his own vivid dialect. He was the 
patriarchal pioneer, a man with the personal 
freedom of a nomad, and the unschooled wis- 
dom of a founder of states in the wilderness. A 
mighty hunter, too, was Armstrong. No day 
passed that we did not bag an antelope, a deer, 
or a big-horn. It was the very land of Cocaigne 
for game. The creatures were so hospitable that 
it hardly seemed proper gratitude to kill them ; 
even that great brown she-bear, who one night 
“ popped her head into the shop,” and, muttering 
something which in the Bruin lingo may have 
been, J What! no soap!” smote Armstrong with 
a paw which years of sucking had not made 
tender. 

Except for Brent’s wound, we four might 
have had a joyous journey, full of the true savor 
of brave travel. But that ghastly, murderous 
hurt of his needed most skilful surgery, and 
needed most of all repose with a mind at peace. 
He did not mend ; but all the while 

“ The breath 

Of her sweet tendance hovering over him 
Filled all the genial courses of his blood 
With deeper and with ever deeper love.” 


AN IDYL OF THE ROCKY S. 


253 


But he did not mend. He wasted daily. His 
sleeps became deathly trances. We could not 
wear him out with haste. Brave heart ! he bore 
up like a brave. 

And at last one noon we drew out of the 
Black Hills, and saw before us, across the spurs 
of Laramie Peak, the broad plain of Fort 
Laramie. 

Brent revived. We rode steadily Just be- 
fore sunset, we pulled up at our goal. 


CHAPTER XXIV. 

# 

DBAPETOMANIA. 

For the last hour I had ridden close to Brent 
I saw that it was almost up with him. He 
swayed in his saddle. His eye was glazed and 
dull. But he kept his look fixed on the little 
group of Laramie Barracks, and let his horse 
carry him. 

I lifted up my heart in prayer that this noble 
life might not be quenched. He must not die 
now that he was enlarged and sanctified by tru- 
est love. 

At last we struck open country. Bill Arm- 
strong’s sorrel took a cradling lope ; we rode 
through a camp of Sioux “ tepees,” like so many 
great white foolscaps ; we turned the angle of a 
great white wooden building, and halted. I 
sprang from Fulano, Brent quietly drooped down 
into my arms. 

“ Just in time,” said a cheerful, manly voice at 
my ear. 

“ I hope so,” said I. “ Is it Captain Ruby T ” 


DBAPET OM ANLL 


26 * 


“ Yes. We ’ll take him into my bed. Dr. 
Pathie, here ’s a patient for you.” 

We carried Brent in. As we crossed the ve- 
randa, I saw Miss Clitheroe’s meeting with her 
father. He received her almost peevishly. 

We laid the wounded man in Ruby’s hospital 
bed. Evidently a fine fellow, Ruby; and, what, 
was to the point, fond of John Brent. 

Dr. Pathie shook his head. 

So surgeons are wont to do when they study 
sick men. It is a tacit recognition of the dark 
negative upon which they are to turn the glim- 
mer of their positive, — a recognition of the mys- 
tery of being. They are to experiment upon life, 
and their chief facts are certain vaguish theories 
why some men die. 

The surgeon shook his head. It was a move- 
ment of sympathy for the man, as a man. Then 
he proceeded to consider him as a machine, 
which it was a surgeon’s business to repair. 
Ruby and I stood by anxiously, while the skilled 
craftsman inspected. Was this insen*’ x)le, but 
still breathing creature, only panting away the 
last pufis of his motive power ? or was it capable 
mechanism still ? 

“ Critical case,” said Dr. Pathie, at last. He 
had great, umbrageous eyebrows, and a gentle, 
peremptory manner, as of one who had done 
much merciful cruelty in his day. “ Ugly wound. 


256 


JOHN BRENT. 


Never saw a worse furrow. Conical ball. He 
must have been almost at the muzzle of the 
pistol. He ought not to have stirred for a 
month. How he has borne such a journey with 
that arm, I cannot conceive. Strong character, 
eh ? Passionate young fellow ? Life means 
something to him. Well, Nature nominates such 
men to get into scrapes for other people; she 
gets them wounded, and drains them of their 
blood. Lying on their backs is good for them, 
and so is feeling weak. They take in more emo- 
tion than they can assimilate while they are wide 
awake. They would go frenzied with over- 
crowded brain, if they were not shut up into 
themselves sometimes, by sickness or sorrow. 
There ’s not much to do for him. A very neat 
hand has been at his bandages. Now, if he is a 
man with a distinct and controlling purpose in 
his life, — if he has words to say, or deeds, or 
duties to do, and knows it, — he will hold by his 
life ; if not, not. Keep him quiet. And do not 
let him see, or hear, or feel the presence of that 
beautiful young woman. She is not his sister, 
ind she will have too much trouble herself to be 
a tranquil nurse for him here.” 

I left him with his patient, and went out to 
care for our horses. Ruby, model host, had 
saved me all trouble. 

“I have given Miss Clitheroe my sole guest* 


DBAPET0MAN1A. 


257 


chamber,” he said. “ She has a lady’s-maid in 
the brawny person of an Irish corporaless. What 
a transcendent being she is ! I don’t wonder 
Brent loves her, as I divined he did from what 
Jake Shamberlain — shrewd fellow Jake — said 
when he consigned the father to me.” 

“ I must have a talk with the old gentleman. 
0, there he is with Armstrong.” 

Armstrong was handing him the money-belt* 
His eyes gleamed as he clutched it. 

“ Walk off with me a step,” said Ruby, “be- 
fore you speak to him.” 

We strolled off through the Sioux encamp- 
ment. The warriors, tall fellows with lithe 
forms, togaed in white blankets, were smoking 
in a circle. Only the great chiefs were in tog- 
gery of old uniforms, blossoming into brass but- 
tons wherever a button could bourgeon. And 
only the great chiefs resembled frowzy scare- 
crows. The women, melancholy, as the abused 
women of barbarians always are, were slouching 
about at slave work. All greeted Ruby as i 
friend, with sonorous grunts 

Society, even of Sioux, dwelling under buffalo 
hide foolscaps, was humane after our journey 
The barracks of Laramie, lonely outpost on a 
bleak plain, were fairly beautiful in their home- 
like homeliness. Man without a roof is mere 
chaos. 


258 


JOHN BRENT. 


“ Trouble in store, I fear,” said Captain Ruby, 
“ for Mr. Clitheroe and all who care for him.” 

“ He ought to be at peace at last.” 

“ He is not. Dr. Pathie says he is a case of 
Drapetomania.” 

“ I have heard that outlandish word used to 
express the tendency — diseased of course — that 
negroes have to run away from their masters.” 

“ Mr. Clitheroe is wild to get away from his 
proper master, namely, himself.” 

“A desperate malady! At his age almost 
fetal.” 

“ So Pathie says. When a man of Mr. Cli- 
theroe’ s age is not at peace within, he goes into 
war with his circumstances. He cannot conquer 
them, so he runs away. He has always before 
him a shadow of a dream of what he might have 
been, and that ghost drives him and chases him, 
until it wears him out.” 

“ Yes ; but it is not only the forlorn and disap- 
pointed that this pitiable disease attacks. Very 
rich and prosperous suffer, become drapetoma- 
niacs, sell houses and build new, change neigh- 
borhoods, travel furiously, never able to escape 
from that inevitable companion of a reproaching 
self.” 

“ Mr. Clitheroe is chafing to be gone. I start 
a train for the States to-morrow, — the last chance 
to travel with escort this season, — a small topo- 


DRAPETOMANIA. 


259 


graphical party going back. He has been for the 
last few days in a passion of impatience, almost 
scolding me and your party, his daughter, and 
circumstances, lest you should not arrive in time 
for him to go.” 

“ To go where ? What does he intend ? ” 

“ He is full of great schemes. I do not know, 
of course, anything of him except what I have 
picked up from his communicativeness ; but you 
would suppose him a duke from his talk. He 
speaks of his old manor-house, — I should know 
it by sight now, — and says he intends to repur- 
chase it and be a great man again. He is con- 
stantly inviting me to share his new splendors. 
Really, his pictures of life in England will quite 
spoil me for another winter of cooling my heels 
in this dismal place, with a scalp on my head 
and a hundred Sioux looking at it hungrily.” 

“ He must be deranged by his troubles. I am 
sure he has no basis for any hopes in England. 
Sizzum stripped him. He has alienated his 
friends at home. His daughter is his only friend 
and guardian, except ourselves.” 

“ He sprang up when he saw you coming, and 
was frantic with joy, — not for his daughter’s 
safety, but because he could start with the train 
to-morrow. I suppose she is a tested traveller 
by this time.” 

“ As thoroughly as any man on the plains.” 


260 


JOHN BKENT. 


“ She can go very comfortably in the train. 
Two or three soldiers’ wives go. Females, I be* 
lieve ; at least their toggery alleges the softer sex, 
whatever their looks and voices do.” 

“ The chance is clearly not to be lost. I do 
not like to part with my fascinating comrade. It 
was poetry to camp with such a woman. Travel 
will seem stale henceforth. I wish we could 
keep her, for Brent’s sake.” 

“Poor fellow! Pathie looks very doubtful. 
You must tell me your story more fully after 
supper.” 

I found Mr. Clitheroe in a panic to be moving. 
He thanked me in a grand manner for our ser- 
vices. But he seemed willing to avoid me. He 
could not forget the pang of his disenchantment 
from Mormonism. I belonged to the dramatis 
personce of a period he would willingly banish. 
He regarded me with a suspicious look, as if he 
feared again that my coming would break up 
new illusions as baseless as the old. He was full 
of large, vague plans. England now ; he must 
be back in England again. His daughter must 
be reinstated in her place. He treated her cold- 
ly enough ; but still all his thought seemed to be 
ambition for her. The money Armstrong had 
given him, too, seemed to increase his confidence 
in the future. That was wealth for the moment. 
Other would come. 


DRAPETOMANIA. 


261 


Mies Clitheroe had yielded to fatigue. I did 
not see her that night. In fact, after all the 
wearing anxiety of our trip, I was glad to lie 
down on a white buffalo-robe, with the Sybaritic 
luxury of a pair of clean sheets, and show my 
gratitude to Ruby by twelve hours’ solid sleep. 

A drum-beat awaked me next morning. It 
was not reveille, it was not breakfast, it was not 
guard mounting. I sprang up, and looked from 
the window. How odd it seemed to peer from 
a window, after the unwindowed wilderness ! 

The four wliite-hooded wagons of the little 
homeward train were ready to start. The drum 
was calling in the escort. The fifty soldiers of 
Ruby’s garrison were grouped about, lending a 
hand to their luckier comrades, homeward bound. 
Ruby was taking leave of his brother officers. 
Armstrong stood a little apart with his horses. 
A busy scene, and busier when some vixenish 
pack-mule shook heels, and scattered the by- 
standers into that figure known to packers as 
the Blazing Star. 

Aloof from the crowd, Mr. Clitheroe was strid- 
ing up and down beside the wagons, with the 
eager, unobserving tramp of a man concerned 
with nothing but a morbid purpose of his own. 
He had bought of some discharged soldier a long 
military surtout, blue-gray, with a cape. Wear- 
ing this, he marched to and fro like a sentry. 


262 


JOHN BRENT. 


His thin, gray hair and long, bifid beard gave 
him a ghastly look ; and then he trod his beat as 
if it were a doom, — as if he were a sentinel 
over his own last evasive hope. 

“ Drapetomania ! ” I thought, “ and a hopeless 
case.” 

A knock at my door, and the brawny corpo- 
raless summoned me to Miss Clitheroe. 

“We are going,” she said. “Take me to 
him ! ” 

Did she love him ? 

I braved Dr. Pathie’s displeasure, and led her 
to the bedside of the lover. 

Brent was still in a stupor. We were alone. 

She stood looking at him a moment. He was 
breathing, but unconscious; dead to the outer 
world and her presence. She stood looking at 
him, and seeming with her large, solemn eyes to 
review those scenes of terror and of relief since 
she had known him. Tears gathered in the 
brave, quiet eyes. 

Suddenly she stooped and kissed his forehead. 
Then she passionately kissed his lips. She grew 
to him as if she would interfuse anew that ichor 
of love into his being. 

She turned to me, all crimsoned, but self-pos- 
sessed. 

“ I meant you should see me prove my love,” 
she said. “Iam proud of myself for it, — proud 


DRAPETOMANIA. 


of my heart that it can know and love this no* 
blest and tenderest nature. Tell him so. Tell 
him it is not gratitude, but love. He will know 
that I could not stay. My life belongs to my 
father. Where he goes, I must go. What other 
friend has he than me? I go with my father, 
but here my heart remains. Tell him so. Please 
let me write to you. You will not forget your 
comrade. I owe more than life to you. Do let 
me keep myself in your memory. I dread my 
life before me. I will keep you informed of my 
father’s plans. And when this dearest one is 
well again, if he remembers me, tell him I love 
him, and that I parted from him — so.” 

She bent again, and kissed him passionately, — 
then departed, and her tears were on his cheek. 


CHAPTER XXY. 


NOBLESSE OBLIGF 

Bbent’s stupor lasted many days. Life had 
been strained to its utmost. Body, brain, heart, 
all had had exhausting taxes to pay. The realm 
must rest. 

While his mind slept, Nature was gently renew- 
ing him. Quiet is cure to an untainted life. 
There was no old fever of discontent in his 
brain. He had regrets, but no remorses. Oth- 
ers had harmed him; his life had been a sad 
one ; he had never harmed himself. The thoughts 
and images tangled in his brain, the “ stuff that 
dreams are made of,” were of happy omen. No 
Stygian fancies made his trance unrest. Life did 
not struggle for recovery that it might plunge 
again into base or foul pursuits, or the scuffles 
of selfishness. A man whose life is for others is 
safe from selfish disappointment when he is com- 
manded to stand aside and be naught for a 
time. 

I knew the images that hovered about my 
sleeping friend’s mind, for I knew the thoughts 


NOBLESSE OBLIGE 


265 


-uat were the comrades of his waking life. His 
memory was crowded full of sights and sounds 
of beauty, and those thoughts that are the emana- 
tions of fair visions and sweet tones, and dwell 
unuttered poetry in the soul. I knew how, long 
ago in childhood, he had made Nature friend, 
and found his earliest comrades among flowers 
and birds. I knew, for he had been my teacher, 
how, when youth first looked widely forth for vis- 
ions of the Infinite, he had learned to compre- 
hend, day after day, night after night, the large 
delight of heaven ; whether the busy heaven, 
when the golden sun makes our sky blue above 
us, and reveals on earth the facts that we must 
deal with and by which we must be taught our 
laws, or the quiet heaven of night, with its 
starry tokens of grander fruition, when we shall 
live for grander days. Sky and clouds, sun and 
stars, brooks and rivers, forests and hills, waves 
and winds, — these had received him to their 
sweet companionship, as his mind could grad- 
ually grasp the larger conceptions of beauty. 
And so, when his time came to perceive the 
higher significance of Art, as man’s rudimentary 
efforts toward creations diviner and more orderly 
than those of earth, he had gone to Art with the 
unerring eye and interpreting love of a fresh 
soul, schooled by Nature only, blind to Art’s 
baser fancies, and hospitable to its holier dreams. 


266 


JOHN BRENT. 


No ugly visions could visit the uncontrolled hour* 
of a brain so stored. His trance was peace. 

More than peace ; for as I watched his quiet 
face, I knew that his spirit was conscious of a 
spiritual presence, and Love was hovering over 
him, a healing element. 

At last he waked. He threw volition into the 
scale of recovery. He was well in a trice. 

Captain Ruby and Doctor Pathie were disposed 
to growl at the rapidity of Brent’s cure. 

“ I have half a mind to turn military despot, 
and arrest you,” said Ruby. “ A pair of muffs, 
even, would be welcome in the winter at Lara- 
mie. You have made a wretched bungle of it, 
Pathie. Why did n’t you mend your man delib- 
erately, a muscle a week, a nerve a month, and 
so make it a six months’ job ? ” 

“He took the matter out of my hands, and 
mended himself. There ’s cool, patient, deter- 
mined vitality in him, enough to set up a legion, 
or father a race. Which is it, Mr. Wade, words 
to say or duties to do, that has made him con- 
dense his being on recovery ? ” 

“ Both, I believe. He is mature now, and 
wants, no doubt, to be at his business of saying 
and doing.” 

“ And loving,” said Ruby. 

“ Ay,” said Pathie. “ That has had more te 
do with it. I hope he will overtake and win, fo 


NOBLESSE OBLIGE. 


26 ? 


I love the boy. I keep my oldish heart pretty 
well locked against strangers; but there is a 
warm cell in it, and in that cell he has, sleeping 
and waking, made himself a home.” 

' “Ah, Doctor,” said Ruby, “you and I, for 
want of women to love, have to content ourselves 
with poetic rovers like Brent. He and Biddulph 
were balls, operas, champagne on tap, new novels, 
flirtations, and cigars to me last winter.” 

We were smoking our pipes on the veranda 
one warm November day, when this conversation 
happened. 

I had not quite forgotten the Barrownight, as 
Jake Shamberlain pronounced him, nor quite 
forgotten, in grave cares, my fancy that his stay 
in Utah was for Miss Clitheroe’s sake. 

I was hardly surprised when, that very even- 
ing, a bronzed traveller, face many shades darker 
than hair and beard, rode up to the post with a 
Delaware Indian, and was hailed by Ruby as 
Biddulph. 

“We were talking of you not an hour ago,” 
said Ruby, greeting him. “Wishing you would 
come to make last winter’s party complete 
Brent is here, wounded.” 

“Has he a lady with him?” said the new- 
comer. His voice and manner were manly and 
frank, — a chivalrous fellow, one of us, one of 
the comradry of knights errant. 


268 


JOHN BKENT 


“ Mr. Wade will give an account of her.” 

“Come in to Brent,” said I, “ and we will talk 
matters over.” 

Ruby, model host, cleared the way for a parley 
whose interest he divined. 

“ I will see after your horses. Don’t lose your 
appetite for supper. We have potatoes ! ” 

“ Potatoes ! ! ” cried Biddulph. “ Not I ! ” 

“Yes, and flapjacks and molasses, ready in 
half an hour.” 

“ Flapjacks and molasses ! Potatoes and flap- 
jacks ! — Yes, and molasses!” Biddulph again 
exclaimed. “ Jewel of a Ruby ! This is the 
Ossa on Pelion of gourmandise. How under- 
done and overdone all the banquets of civiliza- 
tion seem ! I charge thee, Ruby, when the pota- 
toes and the flapjacks and molasses are ready, 
that thou peal a jubilee upon the bell. Now, 
Mr. Wade, let me see this wounded friend, and 
hear and tell.” 

The two gentlemen met with cordiality. 
Brent, I believe, had never identified Miss Cli- 
theroe with the lady Biddulph fled from, and 
I had never mentioned my suspicions. 

“ Not one word, John ! ” said the Briton, 
“until I know what you have done with Ellen 
Clitheroe. Is she safe?” 

Brent comprehended the Baronet’s heart and 
mind at the word. The other, I think, saw aa 


NOBLESSE OBLIGE. 


269 


plainly on Brent’s face that ho was a lover, 
and perhaps the more fortunate one. These two 
loyal men drew closer at this, as wholly loyal 
souls will do, for all the pang of knowing that 
one has loved and lost. 

Brent told our story in brief. 

“ I divined that you were one of the pair who 
had started on the rescue. I could not mistake 
you, man and horse and dress, from the Mor- 
mon’s description.” 

“ You saw Sizzum, then ? ” 

“ I saw his dead body.” 

“ What ? Dead ! ” A sense of relief, that the 
world had one tempter the less, passed through 
our minds. 

“Yes, shot dead, just where the Wasatch 
Mountains open, and there is that wonderful 
view of Salt Lake City. His Nemesis met him 
there. I heard the shot fired, as I was riding 
out to meet the train, and saw him fall ! ” 

“ Who shot him, of the many that had a 
right ? ” 

“ As mild a mannered man as ever shuddered 
at the crack of an egg-shell.” 

“ Vendetta for woman-stealing ? ” 

“Wife-stealing. The man was a poor music- 
teacher, with a pretty spouse in Quincy, Illinois. 
He had told me his own story, without proclaim- 
ing his purpose, though I conjectured it. The 


270 


JOHN BRENT. 


pretty spouse grew tired of poverty and five ehil 
dren. She went off with Sizzum. The mu^'c 
master hired himself to a drover, named Arm 
strong, and plodded out to Utah. When he got 
there, he found Sizzum gone. He turned hun- 
ter. I met him in the mountains, a crack shot. 
He waited his time, ambushed the train, and shot 
Sizzum dead, as he first caught sight of the 
Valley.” 

“A thought of poetry in his justice. What 
then?” 

“ I could see him creeping away among the 
rocks, while the Mormons were getting their 
rifles. They opened fire, a hundred of them. 
Ring, ping ! the balls tapped all about him. He 
was just clear, just springing over a little ridge 
of shelter, when a shot struck him. He flung 
out his arms in an attitude of imprecation, and 
fell over the rocks. Dead, and doubly dead from 
the fall.” 

“Our two evil forces are erased from the 
world, Wade,” said Brent. 

“ May it be good omen for coming difficulties ! 
But how did you learn of the events at Fort 
Bridger ? ” I asked the Baronet. 

“ The Lancashire people in the train all took 
an interest in the Clitheroes. They knew from 
Sizzum what happened when he followed you, 
and your purpose to give chase. I knew John 


NOBLESSE OBLIGE. 


271 


Brent well enough to believe that he would 
achieve the rescue. Happy fellow ! I forgive 
you, John ; hard it is, but I forgive you for step- 
ping in before me. I was waiting there in Utah 
to do what I could for my old love and my old 
friend. I should like to have had a bullet in my 
arm in the cause ; but the result is good, whether 
I gain or lose.” 

“ I never thought of you, Biron. In fact, from 
the moment I saw her, I thought of no one 
else.” 

“ Yes ; that is her power. We were old neigh- 
bors in Lancashire. My father bought the old 
Hall after Mr. Clitheroe’s disasters. The disap- 
pearance and the mysterious reappearance of 
the old gentleman and his beautiful daughter 
were the romance of the region. No one knew 
where they had been. My father was dead. My 
mother tried to befriend them. But the old gen- 
tleman was soured and disappointed. He could 
not forgive us for inhabiting the old mansion of 
his happier days. God knows how gladly I would 
have reinstated him there. But she could not 
love me ; so I came away, and we looked up Lug- 
gernel Springs and the Alley together, John, to 
give you a chance to snatch my destiny away 
from me.” 

Brent, in his weakness, had no answer to 
make, except to give his hand to this gentle rival 


272 


JOHN BRENT. 


“ How did you learn of their Mormon error ? ” 
I asked. 

“ My mother wrote me. She loves Miss Clithe- 
roe like a daughter. She pities the father. His 
wife was her friend. A genial, lovable man he 
was, she says, until, after his losses, people whom 
he had aided turned and accused him of reck- 
lessness and dishonesty, — a charge as false and 
cruel as could be made. My mother wrote, told 
me of Sizzum’s success in Clitheroe, and of our 
friends’ departure. She ordered me. on my 
obedience, never to come back to England until 
I could tell her that Ellen was safe out of Siz- 
zum’s power. She had gone to hear him preach, 
and abhorred him. I received her letter after we 
had parted, John, and I camped with Jake Sliam- 
berlain, waiting for the train. What I could 
have done, I do not know ; but my life was Miss 
Clitkeroe’s.” 

How easy his chivalry seemed to this noble 
fellow! “ Noblesse obligS” ; but the obligation 
was no burden. 

“ You are a stanch friend, Biron,” said Brent 
“ She may need you yet.” 

“ Yes,” said he ; “ Christian England is a sav- 
age, cruel as any of these brutes she has encoun- 
tered here, to a beautiful girl with a helpless, 
crazy father. When can you travel, John ? ” 

“Nearly a month I have been here fighting 


NOBLESSE OBLIGE. 


m 


death and grasping at life. Give me two days 
more to find a horse and ride about a little, and 
we are off.” 

“Armstrong, fine old fellow, left the sorrel for 
you,” I said. u He is in racing tnm now.” 

“ Capital ! ” said Brent. “ One Armstrong is 
a brave weight on the true side of the balance, 
against an army of pioneers who have gone bar- 
barous.” 

“ I have something to show you, John,” said 
Biddulph. “ See here. I bought this of a Mor- 
mon. He had very likely stolen it from Mr. 
Clitheroe’s wagon. It was the only relic I could 
get of them.” 

The very drawing of Clitheroe Hall its former 
owner had wished to show me at Fort Bridger. 
An able sketch of a thoroughly English house. 
If England were sunk in the sea, and its whole 
history perished, English life, society, and man- 
ners could be reconstructed from the inspection 
of such a drawing, as a geologist recalls an ason 
from a trilobite. I did not wonder that it had 
been heart-breaking to quit the shelter of that 
grand old roof. I fixed the picture in my mind. 
The time came when that remembrance was 
precious. 

“Now, Biddulph!” called Ruby, “suppei 
waits. Potatoes ! Flapjacks and molasses ! ” 

“ They shall be a part of me instantly.” 


CHAPTER XXVI 


HAM. 

Two da) s Biddulph solaced himself on thos« 
rare luxuries of Ruby’s manage ; the third, we 
started. 

Ruby and the surgeon rode with us a score of 
miles. It was hard to say good-bye. We were 
grateful, and they were sorry. 

“ What can we do for you, Ruby ? ” 

“ Raze Laramie, abolish the plains, level the 
Rockys, nullify the Sioux, and disband the 
American army.” 

“ What can we do for you, Doctor ? ” 

“ Find me a wife, box her up so that no one 
will stop her in transitu , mark Simeon Pathie, 
M. D., U. S. A., and ship to Fort Vancouver, 
Oregon, where I shall be stationed next summer. 
Your English lady in half a day has spoiled my 
philosophy of a life.” 

“ Good-bye and good luck ! ” 

It was late travelling througn that houseless 
waste. Deep snow already blanched the Black 
Hills, and Laramie Peak, their chief. Mr. Bier- 


276 


stadt, in his fine picture in this year’s Academy, 
has shown them as they are in the mellow days 
of summer. Now, cold and stern, they warned 
us to hasten on. 

We did hasten. We crowded through the buf- 
falo ; we crossed and recrossed the Platte, already 
curdling with winter ; we dashed over the prairies 
of Kansas, blackened by fire and whitened by 
snow, but then unstained by any peaceful settler’s 
blood. 

Jake Shamberlain, returning with his party, 
met us on the way. 

“ I passed the train with the young woman 
and her father,” said he. “ We camped together 
one night, and bein’ as I was a friend of your ’n, 
she give me a talk. Pooty tall talkin’ ’t wuz, 
and I wuz teched in a new spot. I ’ve felt mean 
as muck ever sence she opened to me on religion, 
and when I git home I ’m goan to swing clear of 
the Church, ef I ken cut clear, and emigrate to 
Oregon. So, Barrownight, next time you come 
out, you ’ll find me on a claim there, out to the 
Willamette or the Umpqua, just as much like 
a gentleman’s park in England as one grasshop- 
per is to another, only they hain’t got no such 
mountains to England as I ’ll show you thar.” 

“ Well, Jake, we ’ll try to pay you our re- 
spects.” 

We hastened on. Why pause for our adven- 


276 


JOHN EBENT. 


tures ? They were but episodes along our ne* 
gallop of three. This time it was not restless, 
anxious gallop. We had no doubt but that in 
good time we should overtake our friends, in 
regions where men are not shot along the right 
arm when they protect insulted dames. 

Brent was himself again. We rode hard. 
Biddulph was as fine a fellow as my grandmother 
England has mothered. Find an Englishman 
vital enough to be a Come-outer, and you have 
found a man worthy to be the peer of an Ameri- 
can with Yankee education, Western scope, and 
California irrepressibility. 

Winter chased us close. Often we woke at 
night, and found our bivouac sheeted with cold 
snow, — a cool sheet, but luckily outside our 
warm blankets. It was full December when the 
plains left us, fell back, and beached us upon the 
outer edge of civilization, at Independence, Mis- 
souri. 

The muddy Missouri was running dregs. 
Steamboats were tired of skipping from sand-bar 
to sand-bar. Engineer had reported to Captain, 
that “ Kangaroo No. 5 would bust, if he did n’t 
stop trying to make her lift herself over the 
damp country by her braces.” No more steam- 
ooating on the yellow ditch until there was a 
rise ; until the Platte sent down sand three and 
water one, or the Yellowstone mud three and 


HAM. 


2TT 


water one, or the Missouri proper grit three and 
water one. We must travel by land to St. Louis 
and railroads. 

We could go with our horses as fast as the 
stage-coaches. So we sold our pack beasts, and 
started to continue our gallop of three across 
Missouri. 

Half-way across, we stopped one evening at the 
mean best tavern in a mean town, — a frowzy 
county town, with a dusty public square, a boxy 
church, and a spittley court-house. 

Fit entertainment for beast the tavern offered 
We saw our horses stabled, and had our supper. 

“ Shall we go into the Spittoon ? ” said Bid 
dulph. 

“ Certainly,” said Brent. “ The bar-room — 1 
am sorry to hear you speak of it with foreign 
prejudice — is an institution, and merits study. 
Argee, upon the which the bar-room is based, is 
also an institution.” 

“ Well, I came to study American institutions. 
Let us go in and take a whiff of disgust.” 

Fit entertainment for brute the bar-room of- 
fered. In that club-room we found the brute 
class drinking, swearing, spitting, squabbling 
over the price of hemp and the price of “nig- 
gers,” and talking what it called “ politics.” 

One tall, truculent Pike, the loudest of all that 
blatant crew, seemed to Br^at myself an old 


278 


JOHN BRENT. 


acquaintance. We had seen him or his double 
somewhere. But neither of us could fit him with 
a pedestal in our long gallery of memory. Saints 
one takes pains to remember, and their scenes ; 
but satyrs one endeavors to lose. 

“ Have you had enough of the Spittoon ? ” I 
asked Biddulph. “ Shall we go up ? They ’ve 
put us all three in the same room ; but bivouacs 
in the same big room — Out-Doors — are what 
we are best used to.” 

Two and a half beds, one broken-backed chair, 
a wash-stand decked with an ancient fringed 
towel and an abandoned tooth-brush, one torn 
slipper, and a stove-pipe hole, furnished our 
bedchamber. 

We were about to cast lots for the half-bed, when 
we heard two men enter the next room. The 
partition was only paper pasted over lath, and 
cut up as if a Border Ruffian member of Congress 
had practised at it with a bowie-knife before a 
street-fight. Every word of our neighbors came 
to us. They were talking of a slave bargain. I 
eliminate their oaths, though such filtration does 
them injustice. 

“ Eight hundred dollars,” said the first speak- 
er, and his voice startled us as if a dead man we 
knew had spoken. “Eight hundred, — that’s 
the top of my pile fur that boy. Ef he warn’t so 
old and had n’t one eye poked out, I agree lie ’d 
be wuth a heap more.” 


HAM. 


270 


(i Waal, a trade ’s a trade. I ’ll tako yer 
stump. Count out yer dimes, and I ’ll fill out a 
blank bill of sale. Murker, the boy ’s yourn.” 

“ Murker ! ” — we both started at the name. 
This was the satyr we had observed in the bar- 
room. Had Fulano’s victim crept from under 
his cairn in Luggernel Alley, and chased us to 
take flesh here and harm us again. Such a 
superstitious thought crossed my mind. 

The likeness — look, voice, and name — was 
presently accounted for. 

“ You ’re lookin’ fur yer brother out from 
Sacramenter, ’bout now, I reckon,” said the 
trader. 

“ He wuz cornin’ cross lots with a man named 
Larrap, a pardener of his’n. Like enough they ’ve 
stayed over winter in Salt Lake. They oughter 
rake down a most a mountainious pile thar.” 

“ Mormons is flush and sarcy with their dimes 
sence the emigration. Now thar’s yer bill of 
sale, all right.” 

“ And thar ’s yer money, all right.” 

“ That are ’s wut I call a screechin’ good price 
fur an old one-eyed nigger. Fourteen hundred 
dollars, — an all-fired price.” 

“ Eight hundred, you mean.” 

* No ; fourteen. Yer see, you re not up ter 
taime on the nigger question. I know ’em like & 
church-steeple. When I bought that are boy f 


280 


JOHN BRENT 


now cornin’ three year, I seed he wuz a sprightl) 
nigger, one er yer ambitious sort, what would be 
mighty apt to git fractious, an’ be makin’ tracks, 
onless I got a holt on him. So sez I to him, 
4 Ham, you ’re a sprightly nigger, one of the raal 
ambitious sort, now aincher ? ’ He allowed he 
warnt nothin’ else. 4 Waal,’ sez 1, 4 Ham, how ’d 
you like to buy yerself, an’ be a free nigger, an’ 
hev a house of yer own, an’ a woman of yer own, 
all jess like white folks ? ’ 4 Lor,’ sez he, 4 Massa, 
I ’d like it a heap.’ 4 Waal,’ sez I, 4 you jess 
scrabble round an’ raise me seven hundred dol- 
lars, an’ I ’ll sell you to yerself, an’ cheap at that.’ 
So yer see he began to pay up, an’ I got a holt 
on him. He ’s a handy nigger, an’ a likely 
nigger, an’ a pop’lar nigger. He ken play on 
ther fiddle like taime, — pooty nigh a minstril is 
that are nigger. He ken cut hair an’ fry a beef- 
steak with ayry man. He ken drive team, an’ 
do a little j’iner work, an’ shoe a mule when thar 
ain’t no reg’lar blacksmith round. He made 
these yer boots, an’ reg’lar stompers they is. 
He ’s one er them chirrupy, smilin’ niggers, 
with white teeth an’ genteel manners, what crit- 
turs an’ foaks nat’rally takes to. Waal, he picked 
up the bits and quarters right smart. He ’s ben 
at it, lammin’ ahead raal ambitious, for ’bout 
three year. Last Sunday, after church, he pinted 
up the last ten of the six hundred. So I allowed 


HAM. 


281 


't wuz come time to sell him. He wuz gettin 1 
his bead drawed, an’ his idees sot on freedom 
very onhealthy. I did n’t like to disapp’int him 
to ther last ; so I allowed ’t wuz jest as well to 
let you hev him cheap to go down River. That ’s 
how to work them fractious runaway niggers. 
That are ’s my patent. You ken hev it for 
nothin’. Haw ! haw ! ” 

“ Haw, haw, haw ! You are one er ther boys. 
1 ’m dum sorry that are trick can’t be did twicet 
on the same nigger. I reckon he knows too 
much for that. Waal, s’pose we walk round to 
the calaboose, ’fore we go to bed, an’ see ef he ’s 
chained up all right.” 

They went out. 

Biddulph spoke first. 

“ Shame ! ” 

“ Yes,” said Brent ; “ do you wonder that we 
have to run away to the Rockys and spend our 
indignation on grizzly s ? ” 

“ What are we going to do now ? ” 

“ Try to abolish slavery in Ham’s case. Come ; 
we ’ll go buy him a file.” 

“We seem to have business with the Murker 
family,” said I. 

“ A hard lot they are. Representative brutes ! ” 
“ I am getting a knowledge of all classes on 
your continent,” said Biddulph. “ Some I lik# 
better than others ! ” 


282 


JOHN BRENT. 


“ Don’t be too harsh on us malecontents for thi 
Bin of slavery. It is an ancestral taint. We 
shall burn it out before many decades.” 

“You had better, or it will set your own 
house on fire.” 

It was late as we walked along the streets, 
channels of fever and ague now frozen up for the 
winter. We saw a light through a shop door, 
and hammered stoutly for admission. 

A clerk, long-haired and frowzy, opened un- 
graciously. In the back shop were three others, 
also long-haired and frowzy, dealing cards and 
drinking a dark compost from tumblers. 

“ Port wine,” whispered Brent. “ Fine Old 
London Dock Port is the favorite beverage, when 
the editor, the lawyer, the apothecary, and the 
merchant meet to play euchre in Missouri.” 

We bought our files from the surly clerk, and 
made for the calaboose. It was a stout log struc- 
ture, with grated windows. At one of these, by 
the low moonlight, we saw a negro. It was cold 
and late. Nobody was near. We hailed the man. 

“ Ham.” 

“ That ’s me, Massa.” 

“ You ’re sold to Murker, to go south to-mor- 
row morning. If you want to get free, catch ! ” 

Brent tossed him up the files. 

“ Catch again! ? ’ said Biddulph, and up went 
a rattling purse, England’s subsidy. 


HAM. 


Ham’s white teeth and genteel manners ap- 
peared at once. He griimed, and whispered 
thanks. 

“ Is that all we can do ? ” asked the Baronet, 
as we walked off. 

“Yes,” said Brent, taking a nasal tone. 
“ Ham ’s a pop’lar nigger, a handy nigger, one 
er your raal ambitious sort. He ken cut hair, 
fry a beefsteak, and play on the fiddle like a 
minstril. He ken shoe a mule, drive a team, do 
a little j’iner work, and make stompers. Yes, 
Biddulph, trust him to gnaw himself free with 
that Connecticut rat-tail.” 

“ Ham against Japhet ; I hope he ’ll' win.” 

u Now,” said Brent, “ that we ’ve put in action 
Christ’s Golden Rule, Jefferson’s Declaration of 
Independence, and All-the-wisdom’s Preamble to 
the Constitution, we can sleep the sleep of well- 
doers, if we have two man-stealers — and one 
the brother of a murderer — only papered off 
from us.” 


CHAPTER XXVII. 


FULANO’S BLOOD-STAIN. 

“ What a horse beyond all horses yours is ! ” 
said Biddulph to me next morning, as we rode 
along cheerily through the fresh, frosty air of 
December. “ I think, when your continent gets 
to its finality in horse-flesh, you will beat our 
island.” 

“ Think what training such a trip is ! This 
comrade of mine has come two thousand miles 
with me, — big thought, eh ! — and he freshens 
up with the ozone of this morning, as if he had 
been in the stable a week, champing asphodel.” 

Fulano felt my commendation. He became 
electrified. He stirred under me. I gave him 
rein. He shook himself out, and began to recite 
his accomplishments. 

Whatever gait he had in his legs together, or 
portion of a leap in either pair of them ; what- 
ever gesticulations he considered graceful, with 
toes in the air before, or heels in the air behind ; 
whatever serpentine writhe or sinewy bend of 
the body, whatever curve of the proud neck, 


FULANO’S BLOOD-STAIN.. 


285 


fling of the nead, signal of the ear, toss of the 
mane, whisk of the tail, he knew, — all these he 
repeated, to remind me what a horse he was, and 
justify my praise. 

What a horse, indeed ! 

How far away from him every lubberly road- 
ster, every hack that endures the holidays of a 
tailor, -every grandpapa’s cob, every sloucher in a 
sulky ! Of other race and other heart was this 
steed, both gentle and proud. He was still able 
to be the better half of a knight-errant when a 
charger worth a kingdom must be had, — when 
Love needed his mighty alliance in the battle 
with Brutality. He was willing now, in piping 
times of peace, to dance along his way, a gay 
comrade to the same knight-errant, riding home- 
ward a quiet gentleman, with armor doffed and 
unsuspecting further war. 

What sport we had together that morning ! 
We were drawing near the end of our journey. 
Not that that was to part us ! No, he was to be 
my companion still. I had a vision of him in a 
paddock, with a fine young fellow, not unlike 
myself, patting his head, while an oldish fellow, 
not unlike myself, in fact very me with another 
quarter of a century on my head, told the story 
of the Gallop of Three and the wild charge 
down Luggernel Alley to that unwearying audi- 
tor, while a lady, very like my ideal of a wife, 


286 


JOHN BRENT. 


stood by and thrilled again to the tale. Such a 
vision I had of Fulano’s future. 

But now that our journey was ending, he and 
I were willing, on this exhilarating winter’s day, 
to talk it over. What had he gained by the 
chances by flood and field we had encountered 
together ? 

“ I have not gone,” Fulano notified me, “ two 
thousand miles, since my lonely, riderless days 
among the herds of Gerrian, since our first meet- 
ing on the prairie and my leap through the loop 
of Jose’s lasso, — I have not gone my leagues of 
continent for nothing. 

“ See what lessons I have learnt, thanks to 
you, my schoolmaster ! This is my light step for 
heavy sand; this is my cautious step over peb- 
bles ; my high step over boulders ; my easy, un- 
wasteful travelling gait ; my sudden stop without 
unseating my rider ; so I swerve without shying ; 
and so I spring into top speed without a strain. 
Your lady-love could canter me ; your baby could 
walk me ; because I please to be your friend, my 
friend. But you know me ; I am the untam- 
able still, except by love.” 

And then he rehearsed the gaits he had studied 
from the creatures on the plains. 

“ Look, upper half of the Centaur,” he said, 
in the Centaur language ; “see how an antelope 
goes ! ” 


FULANO’S BLOOD-STAIN. 


287 


He doubled his legs under him and went off 
in high, jerky leaps, twice liis length every one. 

“ Look ! A buffalo ! ” 

He lumbered along, shoulders low, head han- 
dled like a battering-ram, and tail stiff out like a 
steering-oar. 

“ Here ’s a gray wolf.” 

And he shambled forward in a loose-jointed 
canter, looking back furtively, like a thief, sorry 
he didn ’ t stop to steal the other goose, but ex- 
pecting Stop thief ! every minute. 

“ And so go I, Don Fulano, the Indomitable, a 
chieftain of the eliiefest race below the man, — 
so go I when walk, pace, gallop, run, leap, ca- 
reer, tread space and time out of being, to show 
the other half of the Centaursliip what my half 
can do for the love of his.” 

“ Magnificent ! ” applauded Biddulph at this 
display. 

“ His coquetries are as beautiful as a wo- 
man’s,” said Brent. “ One whose sweet wiles 
are nature, not artifice.” 

And I — but lately trained to believe that a 
woman may have the myriad charm of coy with- 
drawal, and yet not be the traitress youth learns 
from ancient cynics to fear — accepted the com- 
parison. 

Ah, peerless Fulano! that was our last love* 
passage ! 


28 » 


JOHN BBENT. 


The day, after the crisp frostiness of its begin- 
ning, was a belated day of Indian summer ; mild 
as the golden mornings of that calm, luxurious 
time. We stopped to noon in a sunny spot of 
open pasture near a wide muddy slough of the 
Missouri. This reservoir for the brewage of 
shakes for Pikes had been refilled in some autumn 
rise of the river, and lay a great stagnant lake 
along the road-side, a mile or so long, two hundred 
yards broad. Not very exhilarating tipple, but 
still water ; the horses would not disdain it, 
after their education on the plains ; we could qual- 
ify it with argee from our flasks, and ice it with 
the little films of ice unmelted along the pool’s 
edges. We were fortified with a bag of com for 
the horses, and a cold chicken for the men. 

We camped by a fallen cottonwood near the 
slough. The atmosphere was hopeful. We pic- 
nicked merrily, men and beasts. “ Three gentle- 
men at once” over a chicken soon dissipated this 
and its trimmings. We lighted the tranquil cal- 
umet, and lounged, watching our horses at their 
corn. 

Presently we began to fancy we heard, then to 
think we heard, at last to be sure we heard the 
baying of hounds through the mild, golden air. 

“ Tally-ho ! ” cried Biddulph, “ what a day for 
a fox-hunt ! This haze will make the scent lie 
almost aR well as the clouds.” 


FULANO’S BLOOD-STAIN. 


289 


u Music ! Music ! ” cried he again, spring 
ing up, as the sound, increasing, rose and fell 
along the peaceful air that lay on earth so lov 
ingly. 

“ Music, if it were in Merrie England, where 
the hunt are gentlemen. A cursed uproar here, 
where the hunt are man-stealers,” said Brent. 

“No,” said Biddulph. “Those are fables of 
the old, barbarous days of the Maroons. I can’t 
believe in dogs after men, until I see it.” 

“ I ’m afraid it ’s our friend Ham they are af- 
ter. This would be his line of escape.” 

At the word, a rustling in the bushes along 
the slough, and Ham burst through. He turned 
to run. We shouted. He knew us, and flung 
himself, livid with terror and panting with flight, 
on the ground at our feet, — the “pop’lar nig- 
ger ” ! 

“ 0 Massa ! ” he gasped. “ Dey ’s gone sot 
de dogs on me. What ’ll I do ! ” 

“ Can you swim,” said I, — for to me he was 
kneeling. 

“ No, Massa ; or I ’d been across thisyer sloo 
fore dis.” 

“ Can you ride ! ” 

“ Reck’n I kin, Massa.” 

A burst of baying from the hounds. 

The black shook with terror. 

I sprang to Fulano. “ Work for you, old 
is * 


290 


JOHN BRENT. 


boy ! ” said I to him, as I flung the snaffle over 
his head. 

“ Take mine ! ” said my two friends at a 
breath. 

“No; Fulano understands this business. Chase 
or flight, all one to him, so he baffles the Brutes.” 

Fulano neighed and beat the ground with 
eager hoofs as I buckled the bridle. 

“ Can’t we show fight ? ” said Biddulph. 

“ There ’ll be a dozen on the hunt. It is one 
of the entertainments hereabouts. Besides, they 
would raise the posse upon us. You forget 
we ’re in a Slave State, an enemy’s country.” 

I led Fulano to the brink. He stood motion- 
less, eying me, just as he eyed me in that terri- 
ble pause in Luggernel Alley. 

“ Here, Ham, up with you ! Put across the 
slough. He swims like an alligator. Then make 
for the north star, and leave the horse for Mr. 
Richard Wade, at the Tremont House, Chicago 
Treat him like a brother, Ham ! ” 

“ Lor bress you, Massa ! I will dat.” 

He vaulted up, like “ a sprightly nigger, one 
of the raal ambitious sort.” 

The baying came nearer, nearer, ringing sweetly 
through the golden quiet of noon. 

I launched Fulano with an urgent whisper. 

Two hundred yards to swim ! and then all 
clear to Freedom! 


HJLAXO’S BLOOD-STAIN. 


291 


Fulano splashed in and took deep water mag- 
nificently. 

What a sight it is to see a noble horse nobly 
breast the flood, — to see his shoulders thrust 
aside the stream, his breath come quick, his eyes 
flash, his haunches lift, his wake widen after 
him ! 

And then — Act 2 — how grand it is to see 
him paw and struggle up with might and main 
upon the farther bank, — to see him rise, all 
glossy and reeking, shake himself, and, with 
a snort, go galloping free and away ! Aha ! a 
sight to be seen! 

We stood watching Act 1. The fugitive was 
half-way across. The baying came closer, closer 
on his trail. 

Two thirds across. 

The baying ceased. The whole pack drew a 
long wail. 

“ They see him, ,, said Biddulph. 

Almost across ! A dozen more plunges, Fu- 
lano ! 

A crowd of armed men on horseback dashed 
up to the bank two hundred yards above us. It 
was open where they halted. They could not 
see us among the bushes on the edge of the 
slough. 

One of them — it was Murker — sprang from 
his saddle. He pointed his rifle quick and 


292 


JOHN BRENT. 


steady. Horse and man, the fugitives, wer« 
close to the bank and the thicket of safety. 

Ping! 

Almost over, as the rifle cracked, Ham had 
turned at the sound of his pursuers crashing 
through the bushes. Fulano swam high. He 
bore a proud head aloft, conscious of his brave 
duty. It was but a moment since he had dashed 
away, and the long lines of his wake still rippled 
against the hither bank. 

We heard the bullet sing. It missed the man 
as he turned. It struck Fulano. Blood spirted 
from a great artery. He floundered forward. 

Ham caught the bushes on the bank, pulled 
himself ashore, and clutched for the bridle. 

Poor Fulano ! He flung his head up and 
pawed the surface with a great spasm. He 
screamed a death-scream, like that terrible cry of 
anguish of his comrade martyred in the old he- 
roic cause in Luggernel Alley. We could see 
his agonized eye turn back in the socket, sending 
toward us a glance of farewell. 

Noble horse ! again a saviour. He yielded and 
sank slowly away into that base ditch. 

But Ham, was he safe ? He had disappeared 
in the thicket. His pursuers called the hounds 
and galloped off to chase him round the slough. 

Ham was safe. He got off to freedom. From 
his refuge in Chicago he writes me that he if 


FULANO’S BLOOD-STAIN. 


293 


“pop’lar” ; that he has “ sot up a Livery Insti- 
tootion, and has a most a bewterful black colt 
a growin’ up fur me.” 

Ham was saved; but Fulano gone. Dead 
by Murker’s rifle. The brother had strangely 
avenged his brother, trampled to death in the far- 
away canon of the Rocky Mountains. Strange 
Nemesis for a guiltless crime ! That blood-stain 
for a righteous execution clung to him. Only 
his own blood-shedding could cleanse him. 

We three on the bank looked at each other for- 
lornly. The Horse, our Hero, had passed away 
from the scene, a marytr. 

We turned to our journey with premonitions 
of eorrowful ill. 


CHAPTER XXVIII. 


SHORT’S OUT-OFF. 

“ Dear Mb. Wade : — 

“ We are hastening on. I can write yon but 
one word. Our journey has been prosperous. 
Mr. Armstrong is very kind. My dear father, 
I fear, is shattered out of all steadiness. God 
guard him, and guide me! My undying love 
to your friend. 

“Your sister, 

“ Ellen CLITHEBOE. ,, 

Armstrong handed us this note at St. Louis, 
Biddulph, once a sentimental pinkling, now a 
brazed man of the wilds, exhibited for this occar 
sion &ily the phenomenon of a brace or so of 
tears. I loved him for his strong sorrow. 

“ Tt, ’s not for myself, Wade,” he said. “ I can 
stand her loving John, and not knowing that she 
has me for brother too ; I ’m not of the lacrymose 
classes ; but this mad error of the father and this 
hopeless faithfulness of the daughter touches me 
tenderly. And here we are three weeks or more 
behind them.” 


SHORT’S CUT-OFF. 


295 


“ Yes,” said Armstrong, “ full three weeks to 
the notch ; an ef ayry one of you boys sets any 
store by ’em, you ’d better be pintin’ along their 
trail afore it gets cold. That’s what I allow. 
He’s onsafe, — the old man is. As fine-hearted 
a bein’ as ever was ; but luck has druv him out 
of hisself and made a reg’lar gonoph of him.” 

“ Gonoph is vernacular for Drapetomaniac, I 
suppose,” said I ; “ and a better word it is. Miss 
Ellen bore the journey well, Armstrong ? ” 

“ That there young woman is made out of watch- 
spring. Ther ain’t no stop to her. The more 
you pile on, the springier she gits. She was a 
mile an hour more to the train cornin’ on. We 
did n’t have anything ugly happen until we got 
to the river. We cum down from Independence 
in the Floatin’ Pailis, No. 5. Some er them gam- 
blin’ Pikes on board got a holt 'm the old man. 
He ’s got his bead drawed on makm’ a pile again, 
and allows that gamblin’ with Pikes on a river- 
boat is one of the ways. He sot his white head 
down to the poker-table, and stuck thar, lookin’ 
sometimes sly as a kioty, sometimes mean and 
ugly as a gray wolf, and sometimes like a dead 
ephergee cut out er chalked wax. She nor J 
could n’t do nothin’ with him. So I ambushed 
the gamblers, an twarn’t much arter midnight 
when I cotched ’em cheatin’ the old man. They 
could n’t wait tc take his pile slow an’ sure. So I 


296 


JOHN BRENT. 


called an indignation meeting and when I told the 
boys aboard I was Luke Armstrong from Oregon, 
they made me chairman, an’ guv me three cheers. 
I know’d it warn’t pollymentary for the chairman 
to make motions, but I motioned we shove the 
hul kit an boodle of the gamblers ashore on logs. 
’T was kerried, quite you-an-I-an-a-muss. So 
we guv ’em a fair show, with a big stick of cotton- 
wood and a shingle apiece, and told ’em to navi- 
gate. The Cap’n slewed the Pallis’s head round 
and opened the furnace-doors to light ’em across, 
and they poot for shore, with everybody yellin’, and 
the Pallis bio win’ her whistle like all oudoors.” 

“ That ’s the American method, Biddulph,” 
said I. “ Lynch-law is nothing but the sovereign 
people’s law, executed without the intervention 
of the forms the people usually adopt for con 
venience.” 

“ With Armstrong for judge, it may do,” said 
Biddulph. 

“ After that,” continued Armstrong, “ we got 
on well, except that the old man kep on the 
stiddy tramp up an’ down the boat, when he 
warn’t starin’ at the engyne, and Ellen could n’t 
quiet him down. He got hash with her, too, and 
that ain’t like his nater. His nater is a sweet 
nater, with considerable weakenin’ into it. Well, 
when we got here, I paid their ticket plum 
through to York out of my own belt, and shoved 


SHORT’S CUT-OFF. 


297 


a nest er dimes into the carpet-bag she asked me 
to buy her. But money wunt help the old man. 
I don’t believe anything but dyin’ will. I never 
would have let ’em go on alone ef I had n’t had 
my own Ellen, and all my brother Bill’s big and 
little ones to keep drivin’ for. Now, boys, I git 
more ’n more oneasy the more I talk about ’em ; 
but I ken put you on the trail, and if Mr. Brent 
is as sharp on trails where men is thick, as he is 
where men is scerce, and if she ’s got a holt on him 
still, he ’ll find ’em, and help u.*n through.” 

“ That I will, Armstrong,” said Brent. 

And next morning we three pursued our chase 
across the continent. 

At New York another hurried note for me. 

“We sail at once for hoi*_x My father cannot 
be at peace until he is in Lancashire again. 
Don’t forget me, dear friends. I go away sick 
\t heart. 

“ Ellen Clitheroe.” 

They left me, — the lover and the ex-lover, — 
and followed on over seas. 

I had my sister’s orphans to protect and my 
bread to win. The bigger the crowd, the more to 
pay tribute to an Orson like myself. I fancied that 
I could mine to more advantage in New York than 
at the Foolonner. There are sixpences in the 
straw of every omnibus for somebody to fina. 

13 * 


JOHN BrfENT. 


I am not to maunder about myself. So I o>nit 
the story how I saw a vista in new life, hewed in 
and took up a “ claim,” which I have held good 
and am still improving. 

Meantime nothing from Brent, — nothing from 
Miss Clitheroe. I grew bitterly anxious for both, 
— the brother and the sister of my adoption. 
These ties of choice are closer than ties of blood, 
unless the hearts are kindred as well as the 
bodies. My sister Ellen, chosen out of all wo 
manhood and made precious to me by the agon; 
I had known for her sake, — I could not end are 
the thought that she had forgotten me ; still less 
the dread that her father had dragged her intc 
some voiceless misery. 

And Brent. I knew that he did not write, 
because he must thus set before his eyes in black, 
cruel words that his pursuit had been vain. The 
love that conquered time and space had beaten 
down and slain Brutality, — was it to be baffled 
at last ? I longed to be with him, lending my 
cruder force to his finer skill in the search. 
Together we might prevail, as we had before pre- 
vailed. But I saw no chance of joining him. I 
must stay and earn my bread at my new business. 

Nothing, still nothing from the lady or the 
lover, and I suffered for both. I wrote Brent, 
and re-wrote him ; but no answer. 

That winter, my old friend Short perfected hia 


SHORT’S CUT-OFF. 


299 


&mous Cut-off. Everybody now knows Short’s 
Cut-off. It saves thirty per cent of steam and 
fifty per cent of trouble and wear and tear to 
engineer and engine. 

Short burst into my office one morning. He 
and Brent and I, and a set of other fellows 
worth knowing, had been comrades in our 
younger days. We still hold together, with a 
common purpose to boost civilization, so far as 
our shoulders will do it. 

“Look at that,” cried Short, depositing a 
model and sheets of drawings on my table. 
“ My Cut-off. What do you think of it ? ” 

I looked, and was thrilled. It was a simple, 
splendid triumph of inventive genius, — a diffi- 
culty solved so easily, that it seemed laughable 
that no one had ever thought of this solution. 

“ Short,” said I, “ this is Fine Art. Hurrah 
for the nineteenth century ! How did you hap- 
pen to hit it ? It is an inspiration.” 

“ It was love that revealed it,” said Short. “ I 
have been pottering over that cut-off for years, 
while She did not smile; when She smiled, it 
came to me like a sneeze.” 

“ Well, you have done the world good, and 
made your fortune.” 

“ Yours too, old fellow, if you like. Pack up 
that model and the drawings, go to England, 
France, Germany, wherever tnev know fteam 


800 


JOHN BBENT. 


from tobacco-smoke, take out patents, and intro* 
duce it. Old Churm says ho will let me have 
half a million dollars, if I want it. You shall 
have free tap of funds, and charge what per- 
centage you think proper.” 

So I took steamer for England, with Short*! 
Out-off to make known. 


CHAPTER XXIX. 


A LOST TRAIL. 

It was June when I reached London. Busi* 
ness, not fashion, was my object. I wished to 
be at a convenient centre of that mighty hud- 
dle of men and things ; so I drove to Smorley’s 
Hotel, Charing Cross. 

In America, landlords dodge personal respon- 
sibility. They name their hotels after men of 
letters, statesmen, saints, and other eminent par- 
ties. Guests will perhaps find a great name 
compensation for infinitesimal comfort. 

They do these things differently in England. 
Smorley does not dodge. Not Palmerston, nor 
vVordsworth, nor Spurgeon, is emblazoned in 
smoky gold on Smorley’s sign ; but Smorley. 
Curses or blessings, therefore, Smorley himself 
gets them. Nobody scowls at the sirloin, and 
grumbles, sotto voce , “ Palmerston has cut it 
too fat to-day ” ; nobody tosses between the sheets 
and prays, “ 0 Wordsworth, why didst thou be- 
grudge me the Insect-Exterminator?” Nobody 
complains, “ Spurgeon’s beer is all froth, and 


802 


JOHN BBENT. 


small at that.” Smorley, and Smorley alone* 
gets credit for beef, beds, and beer. 

Smorley’s Hotel stands at the verge of the East, 
and looks toward the West End of London. The 
Strand passes by its side, so illicit with men, 
horses, and vehicles, that only a sharp eye view- 
ing it from above detects the pavement. The 
mind wearies with the countless throng, going 
and coming in that narrow lane, and turns to 
look on the permanent features of Smorley’s 
landscape. 

The chief object in the view is a certain second- 
rate square, named to commemorate a certain 
first-rate victory. But the square, second-rate 
though it be, is honored by a first-rate railing, a 
balustrade of bulky granite, which may be valu- 
able for defence when Crapaud arrives to avenge 
Trafalgar. Inside the stone railing, which is fur- 
ther protected by a barricade of cabs, with drivers 
asleep and horses in nose-bags, are sundry very 
large stone fountains, of very smoky granite, 
trickling with very small trickles of water, which 
channel the basins as tears channel the face of a 
dirty boy. The square is on a slope, and seems 
to be sliding away, an avalanche of water-basins, 
cabs, and balustrade, from a certain very ugly 
edifice, severely classic in some spots, classic as a 
monkish Latin ballad in others, and well sprouted 
at the top with small sentry-boxes, perhaps shel 


A LOST TRAIL. 


303 


ters for sharp-shooters, should anybody venture to 
look nu stard at the building. A bronze horse- 
man, on a bronze horse sixteen hands high, is at 
work at the upper corner of the square, trying to 
drive it down hill. A bronze footman, on a col- 
umn sixteen hundred feet high, or thereabouts, 
stands at the foot of the square, hailing that fu- 
gacious enclosure from under a nautical cocked 
hat to do its duty, as England expects everything 
English will, and not to run away from the ugly 
edifice above. 

Such is the square at the very centre of the 
centre of the world, as I saw it from Smorley’s 
corner window, while dining in the June twi- 
light, the evening of my arrival in London. 

I sat after dinner looking complacently out up- 
on the landscape. A man never attains to that 
stolidity of content except in England, where the 
air’s exciting oxygen is well weakened with fog, 
and the air’s exhilarating ozone is quite dis- 
charged from dancing attendance. London and 
England were not strange to me ; but a great city 
is ever new, and after two years’ inane staring at 
a quartz-mine, town ard townsfolk were still 
lively contrast to my mind. 

I was quietly entertaining myself, sipping 
meanwhile my pint of Port, — Fine old Crusty, 
it was charged in the bill, when I saw coming 
down St. Martin’s Lane, between the cabs and 


804 


JOHN BRENT. 


the balustrade of the square, two gentlemen ) 
knew. 

Brent and Biddulph ! Biddulph, surely 
There could be no mistaking that blonde, manly 
giant, relapsed again into modified Anglicism of 
dress ; but walking freely along, with a step that 
remembered the prairie. 

But that pale, feeble fellow hanging on the 
other’s arm! Could that be John Brent? He 
was slouching along, looking upon the ground, 
a care-worn, dejected man. It cost me a sharp 
pang to see my brilliant friend so vanquished 
by a sorrow I could comprehend. 

I sprang up, snatched my hat, and rushed out. 
Eight quiet men, dining systematically at eight 
tables in the coffee-room, were startled at a rar 
pidity of movement quite unknown to the pre- 
cincts of Smorley, and each of the eight choked 
over his mouthful, were it ox-tail, salmon, mutton, 
bread, or Fine old Crusty. Eight waiters, caught 
in the act of saying “ Yessir ! D’rectly Sir ! ” 
were likewise shocked into momentary paralysis. 

I dashed across the street, knocking the nose- 
bag off the forlorn nose of a hungry cab-horse, 
and laid my hand on my friend’s shoulder. He 
turned, in the hasty, nervous manner of a man 
who is expecting something, and excited with 
Waiting. 

“ I was half inclined to let you pass,” said I 


A LOST TRAIL. 


806 


u You have not written. I had no right to sup- 
pose you alive.” 

“ I could only write U. pain you and myself. 
I have not found her. I am hardly alive. I 
shall not long be.” 

“ Come,” said Biddulph, with his old friendly, 
cheery manner ; “ now that Wade has joined us, 
we will have a fresh start, and better luck. Walk 
on with us, Wade, and Brent will tell you what 
We have been doing.” 

“ Why should I tire him with the weary story 
of a fruitless search ? ” said Brent. 

It was the same utterly disheartened manner, 
the same tone of despair, that had so affected 
me that evening on the plain of Fort Bridger. 
Not finding whom he sought w as crushing him 
now, as losing her crushed him then. But I 
thought by what a strange and fearful mercy 
our despair of that desolate time had been 
changed to joy. Coming newly to the fact of 
loss, I could not see it so darkly as it was 
present to him. A great confidence awoke in 
me that our old partnership renewed would pros- 
per. I determined not to yield to his mood. 

“Your search, then, is absolutely fruitless,” 
said I. “ Well, if she is not dead, she must 
have forgotten us?” 

“Is she a wcman to forget?” said Brent, 
roused a little by my wilful calumny. 


S06 


JOHN BRENT. 


“ Like other women, I suppose.” 

“ You must have forgotteu the woman wi 
met and saved, and had for our comrade, to 
think so.” 

I rejoiced at the indignation I had stirred. 

“ Why, then, has she never written ? ” I que- 
ried. 

“ I am sure as faith that she has, but that her 
father has cunningly suppressed her letters.” 

“ The same has occurred to me. The poor 
old fellow, ashamed of his Mormon life, would 
very likely be unwilling that any one who knew 
of it should be informed of his whereabouts.” 

“ He might, too, have an undiscriminating, 
senile terror of any letter going to America, 
lest it should set Danites upon his track, as a 
renegade. He might fear that we would take 
his daughter from him. There are twenty sup- 
positions to make. I will not accept that of 
death nor of neglect.” 

“ No,” said Biddulph ; “ dead people cannot 
hide away their bodies, as living can.” 

“ You know that they are in England ? ” 

“ They landed in Liverpool from the Screw. 
There they disappeared. Biddulph took me to 
Clitheroe, up to the old Hall. A noble place it 
is. It is poetry to have been born there. I do 
not wonder Mr. Clitheroe loved it.” 

“You must go down with me, Wade, as soon 


A LOST TSAI I ~ 


807 


as the season is over,” said Biddulph. “ I wish I 
could quarter you in town. Brent is with me. 
But you will dine with us every day, when you 
have nothing better to do, and be at home with 
us always. I can give you flapjacks and mo- 
asses, Laramie fashion.” 

“ Thank you, my dear fellow ! ” 

“ You must not think,” says Brent, “ that 1 
went up to Clitheroe even for Biron’s hospitality. 
We were both on the search all through the 
country. We thought Mr. Clitheroe might have 
betaken himself to a coal-mine again. We dis- 
covered the very mine where he formerly worked. 
They remembered him well. The older genera- 
tion of those grimy troglodytes well remembered 
Gentleman Hugh and his daughter, little Lady 
Ellen, and the rough fellows and their rough 
wives had a hundred stories to tell of the beauti- 
ful, gentle child, — how she had been a good angel 
to them, and already a protectress to her father. 
In the office, too, of the coal-mine, we found 
traces of him under another name, always faith 
ful 5 honest, respected, a : gentleman. It was 
interesting to have ail n.t . ad story confirmed, 
just as he told it to you the night of Jake 
Shamberlain’s ball ; but it did not help ou* 
search. Then we enlarged its scope, and fol- 
lowed out every line of travel from Liverpool 
%nd to London, the great monster, that draws in 


808 


JOHN BBENT. 


all, the prosperous and the ruined, the rich to 
spend and the poor to beg. 

“ We have had some queer and some romantic 
adventures in our search, eh, Brent ? Some 
rather comic runaways we ’ve overhauled,” said 
Biddulpli ; “but we ’ll tell ;0U of them, Wade, 
when we are in good spirit* again, and with oui 
fugitives by us to hear what pains we took for 
their sake.” 

“ And all this while you have found no trace ? ’ 
I said. 

“ One slight trace only,” replied my friend ; 
“ enough to identify them disappearing among 
these millions of London. We found a porter at 
the Paddington station, who had seen a young 
lady and an old man stepping from a third-class 
carriage of a night-train. ‘ You see, sir,’ said 
the man, — he evidently had a heart under his 
olive corduroys, — ‘I marked the old gent and 
the young woman, she was so daughterly with 
him. I ’ve got a little girl of my own, and may- 
hap I shall come out old and weakly, and she ’ll 
have to look after me. It was the gray of the 
morning when the train come in. There warn’t 
many passengers. It was cold winter weather, — 
the month of February, I should say. The 
young woman, — she had dark hair, and looked 
as if she was one to go through thick and thin, 
— she jumped out of the carriage, where she had 


A LOST TRAIL. 


m 


oeen settin’ all that cold night, and gave the old 
gent her hand. I heard her call him “Father,” 
and tell him to take care ; and he had need. He 
seemed to be stiff with cold. He was an old 
gent, such as you don’t see every day. He had 
a long white beard, — a kind of swallow-tail 
beard. His clothes, too, was strange. He had a 
long gray top-coat, grayish and bluish, with a 
cape of the same over his shoulders, and brass 
buttons stamped with an eagle. A milingtary 
coat it was. I used to see such coats on the 
sentinels in France when I went over to dig on 
the Chalong Railway. The old gent looked like 
a foreigner, with his swallow-tail beard and that 
milingtary coat ; but there was an Englishman 
under the coat, if I knows ’em. And the young 
woman, sir, was English, — I don’t believe there ’s 
any such out of Old England.’ ” 

“ It must be they,” cried I. “ I saw him in 
that very coat, tramping up and down like a 
hunted man, beside the wagons that were to take 
him from Fort Laramie.” 

“ You did ? That completes the identification. 
But what good? This was a trace of them in 
London ; so is a sailor’s cap on a surge a token 
of a sailor sunk and lying somewhere under the 
gray waste of sea. We lost them again utterly.” 

With such talk, we had descended from Tra- 
falgar Square, gone down Whitehall, turned io 


810 


JOHN BRENT. 


at the Horse Guards, and, crossing Grt^n Park, 
had come out upon Hyde Park Corner. It was 
the very top moment of the London season. 
The world, all sunshine and smiles and splendor, 
was eddying about the corner of Apsley House. 
Piccadilly was a flood of eager, busy people. The 
Park blossomed with gay crowds. But under 
all this laughing surface, I saw with my mind^ 
eye two solitary figures slowly sinking away and 
drowning drearily, — two figures solitary except 
for each other, — a pale, calm woman, with gray, 
steady eyes, leading a vague old man, with a 
white beard and a long military surtout. 

“ Lost utterly ! ” said Brent again, as if in 
answer to my thought. 

“ No,” said I, shaking off this despondency.' 
“We have seemed to lose her twice more des- 
perately than now. It looked darker when we 
left them at Fort Bridger; much darker when 
we knew that those ruffians had got time and 
space the start of us ; darkest of all when poor 
Pumps fell dead in Luggernel Alley. Searching 
in a Christian city is another thing than our 
agonized chase in the wilderness.” 

“ A Christian city ! ” said Brent, with a slight 
shudder. “You do not know what this Chris- 
tian city is for a friendless woman. There are 
brutes here as evil and more numerous than 
in all barbarism together. Many times, in my 


A LOST TRAIL- 


811 


searches up and down the foul slums of London, 
I have longed to exchange their walls for the 
walls of Luggernel Alley, and endure again the 
frenzy of our gallop there. You think me weak, 
perhaps, Wade, for my doubt of success; but 
remember that I have been at this vain search 
over England and on the Continent for five 
months.” 

“But understand, Wade,” said Biddulph, 
“that we do not give it up, although we have 
found no clew.” 

“ Give it up ! ” cried Brent with fervor. “ I 
live for that alone. When the hope ends, I 
end.” 

How worn he looked, “ with grief that ’s beau- 
ty’s canker ! ” Life was wasting from him, as 
it ever does when man pursues the elusive and 
unattained. When a man like Brent once vol- 
untarily concentrates all his soul on one woman, 
worthy of his love, thenceforth he must have 
love for daily food, or life burns dim and is a 
dying flame. 

“To-morrow,” said I, halting at the Park 
comer, “ I must be at work setting my business 
m motion. I have letters to write this evening, 
and a dozen of famous mechanicians to see to- 
morrow. In the evening we will put our heads 
together again.” 

“Over my claret and a weed after it, under* 
stand,” said Biddulph. 


BVZ 


JOHN BKENT. 


“ Yes, 1 ’ll try whether you can take the tasti 
of Missouri argee and pigtail out of my mouth.” 

“You must be prepared to be made a lion 
of by my mother an I cousins. They know the 
history of Don Fulano as well as a poet knows 
the pedigree of Pegasus. I have brought tears 
to many gentle eyes with the story of his martyr- 
dom for liberty.” 

“ Ah, Fulano ! if we only had him here ! He 
would know how to aid us.” 

I left them, and walked down Piccadilly to 
Smorley’s. Some of the eight waiters, who had 
seen mo bolt, still regarded me with affright. 
I wrote my letters and went to bed. 

My brain was still rolling in my skull with 
the inertia of its sea voyage. The blur and 
bustle of London perplexed me. I slept; but 
in my worried sleep I seemed to hear, above 
, the roar in the streets, a far-away scream of a 
woman, as I had heard it in the pause of the 
gale at Fort Bridger. Then I seemed to have 
unhorsed the Iron Duke from his seat at Hyde 
Park Corner, and, mounted in his place and 
armed with the Nelson Column for a lance, to 
be charging along the highways and by-ways of 
London in chase of two dim, flying figures, — a 
lady pale as death, and a weary man in a long 
gray surtout. 


CHAPTER XXX. 


LONDON. 

Short’s Cut-off shut out all other subjects from 
my head next morning. 

It was an innovation, a revolution. Mankind 
objects to both. It came from America, and 
though America has given tobacco, woman’s 
rights, the potato, model yachts, model States, 
and trotting horses to the Old World, that World 
still distrusts our work as boyish. We in turn 
deem the Old World a mere child, and our youth 
based on a completer maturity than they will at 
tain for half a millennium. 

Short’s Cut-off was so simple that it puzzled 
everybody. 

I consulted half a dozen eminent engineers. 

“ Very pretty, indeed ! ” they said, and at once 
turned the conversation to the explosions on 
Western rivers. “Had I ever been blown up? 
How did it feel ? ” 

But as to Short’s Cut-off, they only thought it 
a neat contrivance, but evidently by a pereoB 
who did not comprehend intricate machinery. 


314 


JOHN BRENT 


I took it to a man of another order. England 
is the worlds machine-shop ; he was England's 
chief engineer. A great man he dead, 

alas ! now. A freeman, who recognized the world 
as his country, and genius everywhere as his 
brother. 

He understood Short’s Cut-off at a glance. 

How I wish old Short could have been there, 
to see this great man’s eye glow with enthusiasm 
as he said : “ Admirable ! This is what we have 
all been waiting for. Padiliam must see this. We 
must have it in every engine in England. Com- 
mand my services to aid in making it known.” 

“ Can you recommend me,” said I, presently, 
“ a thorough mechanic. I want some more mod- 
els made of these valves and machinery, to il- 
lustrate their action.” 

“ You must go to Padiham, the best artisan T 
know in all England.” 

“ Worth seeing for himself, as the man whom 
you name best among these millions of crafts* 
men.” 

“ Padiham is the man.” 

“ He ought to have name and fame.” 

“ He might if he chose.” 

“ Worth knowing, again, for this rare abnega- 
tion.” 

“ He is an oddity. Some unlucky mode of life 
stunted him, mind and body, until he was a ma* 


LONDON. 


SIS 


fcure man. He is dwarfed in poison, and fancies 
his mind sutlers too. It makes him a little gruff 
to feel that he is a man of tools, and not of princi- 
ples, — a mechanic, not a philosopher. There is 
nothing of morbidness or disappointment in him. 
Only he underrates himself, and fancies his pow- 
ers blunted by his deformity. He keeps out of the 
way, and works alone in a little shop. He will 
only do special jobs for me and one or two oth- 
ers. He says he would be our equal, if he were 
full-grown. We deem him our peer, and treat 
him as such ; but he will not come out and take 
the place he could have at once before the world. 
I thought of him, and wished him to see this Cut- 
off, as soon as you showed it to me. You must 
tell him I sent you, or he may be surly at first, 
and so drive you away, or perhaps refuse to do 
your work.” 

“ I think I can make my way with such a per- 
son ; but if not, I will use your name. Where is 
he to be found ? ” 

“ This is his address. An out-of-the-way place, 
you see, if you know London. A by-street on 
the Surrey side of the Thames. He is well to 
do; but lives there for a special economy. He has 
a method of charity, which is like himself thor- 
oughly original. More good he does in his odd 
way than any man I know. He owns the whole 
house over his shop, and uses it as a private 


816 


JOHN BBEN’I. 


hospital or hospice for poor but worthy sick and 
broken-down people.” . 

“His own dwarfishness makes him sympa- 
thetic?” 

“ Yes ; instead of souring, it softens him to 
the feeble. He may perhaps feel a transitory 
resentment at big, strong fellows like you and 
me ; but he is always tender to the weak. His 
wonderful knowledge of machinery comes into 
play in his hospital. From the machines man 
makes, he has passed to a magical knowledge of 
the finest machine of all.” 

“ The human body ? ” 

“ The machine that invents and executes ma- 
chines, the human body, — the most delicate 
mechanism of all, the type of all its own inven- 
tions. Padiham achieves magical cures. He is 
working by practice, and lately by study, into 
profound surgical skill. There is no man in 
England whom I would trust to mend me if I 
broke, as I would Padiham.” 

“ He avenges himself upon Nature for not per- 
fecting him, by restoring her breakages. Why 
do you not suggest to him to become a professed 
repairer of mankind ? ” 

“ I have suggested it. He says he must take 
his own way. Besides, mechanics can hardly 
spare him. Many of my own inventions would 
have stayed in embryo in my brain, if Padiham 


LONDON. 


817 


had not played Vulcan, and split a passage for 
them. 1 talk over my schemes to him ; he 
catches the idea and puts it into form at once,” 

“ You interest me very much,” said I. “ I 
must see the man and know him, for my own 
sake as well as for Short’s Cut-off.” 

“ Take care he does not drive you away in a 
huff. You ’ll find him a rough-hewn bit.” 

I went at once. A man who had warred with 
Pikes at the Foolonner Mine, to say nothing of 
other ruder characters, was not to be baffled, so 
he trusted, by a surly genius. 

As I walked through the crush of the streets, 
again there came to me that vision of the old 
man and his daughter lost in the press, — more 
sadly lost, more vainly seeking refuge here, than 
in the desert solitudes where we had found them. 

Every one familiar with great cities knows of 
strange rencounters there, and act every turn I 
looked narrowly about, fancying that I should 
see the forms I sought, just vanishing, but leav- 
ing me a clew of pursuit. This expectation grew 
so intense, that I exaggerated slight resemblances 
of costume or of port, and often found myself 
excitedly hurrying quite out of my way, and 
shouldering through huddles of people, to come 
at some figure in the distance. But when I over- 
took the old man of feeble step, or the young 
woman moving fearlessly amid the pitiless crowd, 


818 


JOHN BRENT. 


or the pair I had followed, and stared at them 
eagerly, strange and offended looks met me in- 
stead of the familiar, perhaps the welcome, look 
I had hoped ; and I turned away forlornly exag- 
gerating the disappointment as I had the fancy. 

I cooled at last from this flurry. Nothing but 
blanks in the lottery. It was folly to be wasting 
my energy in this way. Trusting Providence, or 
rather this semblance of Providence, this mere 
chance, was thin basis for action. So I resumed 
my proper course, and turned my steps quietly 
toward Padiham’s shop. 

But when presently I stood upon London 
Bridge, between two cities of men, between the 
millions I had escaped and the million I was to 
plunge among, a great despair grew heavier and 
heavier upon me 

This terrible throng, here as everywhere hurry- 
ing by me ! And I compelled to note every man 
and every woman, and to say to myself, “ This is 
not he,” — “ This is not she,” — “ These are not 
they ! ” All the while this stream of negatives 
rushing by, and every one bearing a little fraction 
of hope away. 

Tn that great city — in its nests and its prisons 
— were people who had been living side by side 
for a life-time, and yet had never had one glimpse 
of each other’s form or feature ; who were, each 
to each, but a name on a door, a step overhead, a 


LONDON. 


819 


6read on the stair, a moan of anguish, a laugh, 
or a curse. There were parallel streets, too, 
whose tenants moved parallel and never met, and 
never would meet. There were neighborhoods 
farther distant than Cornhill is from Cairo, or 
Pimlico from Patagonia. It was a dark den — 
that monster city — for any one who loved to 
lurk, or be buried away from sight of friend or 
foe ; it was a maze, a clewless labyrinth for one 
who sought a foe to punish or a friend to save. 

Evening was approaching. I must consider 
Short and his Cut-off, and all England wasting 
steam at the rate of millions of pounds a year 
(enough to save the income tax) until that 
Cut-off should be applied. In that populous 
realm were ten thousand cylinders devouring 
one third more steam than was healthy working 
allowance ; and I was halting on London Bridge, 
staring like a New-Zealander at the passers, a 
mere obstacle to progress, a bad example, a sta- 
tionary nuisance now, as I had been a mobile 
and intrusive one before. 

I had some little difficulty in finding Padiham’s 
retiring-place. I had already dissected it out on 
the map, identified it by its neighborhood to a 
certain artery and its closer neighborhood to a 
certain ganglion. It was Lamely Court, a quiet 
retreat in a busy region. It looked, indeed, as if 
it had never taken a very active part in the 
world, or as if. when it offered itself to bustle 


320 


JOHN BRENT. 


and traffic, more enterprising localities had hu» 
tied it aside, and bade it decline into a lethargy. 
The withered brick houses had the air and visage 
of people who have seen better days, and sub- 
sided into the desponding by-ways, apart from 
the thoroughfares of the bold and sturdy. Mean 
misery and squalor did not abide there. It was 
not a den for the ragged, but a shy retreat for 
the patched, — for the decent and decorous poor. 

Half-way down the court, on the sunny side, 
I found Padiham’s house. It was quietly, not 
obtrusively, neater and fresher than its neigh- 
bors. Its bricks had a less worm-eaten look, and 
its window-panes were all of glass and none of 
newspaper. The pot roses in an upper story 
window were in bloom, and had life enough to 
welcome the June sunshine, while sister plants 
in other garrets all about the court were too far 
blighted ever to dream of gayer product than 
some poor jaundiced bud. These roses up in 
Padiliam’s window cheered the whole neighbor- 
hood greatly, with their lively coloring. It was 
as if some pretty maiden, with rosy cheeks and 
riper rosy lips, were looking down into that 
forlorn retreat, and warming every old, faded 
soul, within every shabby tenement, with bright 
reminiscence of days when life was in its per- 
fume and its flower. 

Such was the aspect of Padiham’s abode. Hi* 
•hop lurked in the basement. 


CHAPTER XXXI. 


A DWARF. 

It was with much curiosity and interest in 
Padiham that I stepped down into the basement, 
and entered his shop. I reverence as much a 
great mechanic, in degree, perhaps in kind, as I 
do any great seer into the mysteries of Nature. 
He is a king, whoever can wield the great forces 
where other men have not the power. And none 
can control material forces without a profound 
knowledge, stated or unstated, of the great mas- 
terly laws that order every organism, from dust 
to man and a man-freighted world. A great 
mechanic ranks with the great chiefs of his time, 
prophets, poets, orators, statesmen. 

Padiham was in his shop at work. No mis- 
taking him. A stunted, iron-gray man, not mis- 
shapen, but only shut together, like a one-barrelled 
opera-glass. 

A very impressive head was Padiham’s. No 
harm had been done to that by whatever force 
had driven in his legs and shut his ribs together. 
His head wa6 full grown. In contrast with his 


822 


JOHN BRENT. 


body, it seemed even overgrown. His hair and 
beard were iron-gray. He had those heavy, 
square eyebrows that compel the eyes from 
roving, and shut them down upon the matter 
in hand, so that it cannot escape. Not a man, 
this, to err on facts or characters. A pretender 
person, a sham fact, he would test at once and 
dismiss. Short’s Cut-off had never met a sterner 
critic than this man with the square forehead 
and firm nose. 

He was hard at work at a bench, low according 
to his stature, filing at some fine machinery. 
The shop was filled with a rich sunny duskiness. 
Here and there surfaces of polished brass spar- 
kled. Sunbeams, striking through the dim win- 
dows, glinted upon bits of bright steel strewn 
about. I perceived the clear pungent odor of 
fresh steel filings, very grateful after the musty 
streets, seething in June sunshine and the ex- 
halations of the noisome Thames. It was a 
scene of orderly disorder, ruled by the master- 
workman there. 

Padiham had, of course, observed my entrance. 
He took no notice of me, and continued his 
work. 

I held my station near the door. I did not 
wish to spoil his job by the jar of an interrup 
tion. Besides, I thought it as well to let him 
speak first. I was prepared for an odd man ; 
he might make the advances, if he pleased. 


A DWAKF. 


823 


Padiliam went on filing, in a grim, intelligent 
way. I glanced about the shop. 

There were models all about of machines, 
some known, some strange to me ; disconnected 
portions of inventions lying side by side, and 
wanting only a bolt 01 a screw to be organized 
and ready to rush at pumping, or lifting, or 
dragging, or busy duty of some useful kind. 
There was store, too, of interesting rubbish, — 
members of futile models, that could not do busy 
duty of their kind for some slight error, and 
worth careful study as warnings ; for failure with 
mechanics is the schoolmaster of success. Draw- 
ings of engines hung all about the walls. A* 
guardian genius of the spot, there was a portrait 
of that wise, benignant face of my friend of this 
morning, that great engineer who had directed 
me hither. 

Apart in a dusky corner, by the chimney and 
forge, hung two water-color drawings in neat 
gilt frames. They were perhaps a little incon- 
gruous with the scenery of the gnome’s cavern. 
I did not, of course, expect to find here a portrait 
of a truculent bruiser or a leering bar-maid. 
Beery journeymen keep such low art hanging 
before them to seduce them from any ambition 
to become master hands and beguile them back 
of beer. Padiham would of course need draw- 
ings of models and machines, and enjoy them? 


324 


JOHN BRENT. 


but I did not look for Art proper in his shop. 
There, however, in the dim background, hung 
the two cheerful drawings, in their neat frames. 
They renewed and repeated the feeling which the 
gay roses in the upper windows had given me. 
My fancy supplied a link between the drawings 
and the flowers. They infused a pleasant ele- 
ment of refinement into the work-a-day atmo- 
sphere of the shop. 

One of these drawings — I could just faintly 
distinguish their subject, and not the skill, greater 
or less, of their handling — was a view of an old 
brick many-gabled manor-house on a lawn dotted 
with stately oaks. Its companion — and the light 
hardly permitted me to decipher it — seemed to 
be a group of people seated on the grass, and a 
horse bending over them. I glanced at these 
objects as my eye made the tour of the shop ; 
but my head was filled with Short’s Cut-off and 
this grim dwarf before me. 

Presently Padiham laid down his file, and took 
up a pair of pincers from the confusion on his 
bench. He gave a bit of wire a twist, and, as 
he did so, looked at me. The square eyebrows 
seemed to hold me stiff, while he inspected. He 
studied my face, and then measured me from top 
fa toe. There was a slight expression of repel 
lence in his features, as if he thought, “ This big 
t A llow probably fancies that his long legs make 
turn my master ; we ’ll try a match.” 


A DWAKF 


326 


He addressed me in a sweet, hearty voice, quite 
in discord with his gruff manner. No man could 
be a bear and roar so gently. I perceived the 
Lancashire accent. The dialect, if it had ever 
been there, was worn away. Tones are older in 
a man than words. He can learn a new tongue ; 
his organ he hardly alters. If Nature has or- 
dained a voice to howl, or snarl, or yelp, or bray, 
it will do so now and tlien, stuff our mouths 
with pebbles as we may. 

Padiham’s frank, amiable voice neutralized his 
surly manner, as he said: “Now then, young 
man, what are you staring at? Do you want 
anything with me ? Say so, if you do. If not, 
don’t stand idling here ; but go about your busi- 
ness.” 

“ I want you to do a job for me.” 

“ Suppose I say, I don’t want to do it ? ” 

“ Then I ’ll try to find a better man.” 

“ Umph ! where ’ll you look for him ? ” 

“ In the first shop where there ’s one that 
knows enough to give good words to a stranger.” 

“Well; say what your job is.” 

“ You ’re ready to do it then ? 

“I’m not ready to waste any more time in 
talk.” 

“Nor I. I want some working models of • 
new patent Cut-off.” 

“ I wont undertake any tom-foolery.” 


826 


JOHN BBENT. 


“If you can make tom-foolery out of tills, 
you ’re a cleverer man than I am.” 

“That may not be much to say. I’ve had 
so many shams brought to me in the way of cut- 
offs that I shall not spend time on yours unless 
it looks right at first glance. 

“You ’ll see with half an eye that this means 
something.” 

“ Show me your drawings ; that will settle 
it.” 

I produced the working drawings. 

Padiham studied them a few moments. 1 
volunteered no explanation. 

Presently he looked up, and fixed me with his 
square eyebrows, while he examined me from 
head to foot again. 

“ Did you invent this ? ” said he. 

“ No.” 

“ Umph ! Thought not. Too tall. Who 
did ? ” 

“Mr. Short.” 

“ Don’t Mister the man that thought out this. 
His whole name I want, without handles. He 
don’t need ’em.” 

“George Short.” 

“George, — that’s my name too. I suppose 
he is a Yankee. I know every man in England 
likely to have contrived this ; but none of them 
have quite head enough.” 


A DWABF. 


827 


“ He is an American.” 

“ Is lie a Mormon?” 

“No” 

“Are you?” 

“No. It is an odd question.” 

“ I don’t know much about your country, ex- 
cept that you invent machines, keep slaves, blow 
up steamboats, and beguile off Englishmen with 
your damned Mormonism. The Mormons have 
done so much harm in my country, — Lancashire 
that is, — that I’ve sworn I’d never have any- 
thing to do with any Yankee, unless I first knew 
he was not one of those wolves. But if you ’re 
not, and George Short is not, I ’ll do your job. 
Now tell me precisely what you want made, for 
I can’t spend time with you.” 

“ I want six sets of these models at once.” 

“ I ’ll order the castings this evening. I have 
materials here for the fine parts. Can you han- 
dle tools ? — I mean useful tools, — files and saws 
and wrenches, not pens and sand-boxes.” 

“ I ’m a fair workman with your tools.” 

“ You can help me then. Come over to-mor- 
row morning at seven. No ; you ’re an idler, 
and I ’ll give you till eight. If you ’re not here 
by that time you ’ll find me busy for the day.” 

So saying, Padiham turned off to his work. 
He gave me no further attention ; but filed away 
grimly. I watched him a moment. What in 


828 


JOHN BRENT. 


tensity and earnestness were in this man ! Lika 
other great artists, who see form hidden within 
a mass of brute matter, he seemed to be urged 
10 give himself, body and soul, to releasing the 
form from its cell, to setting free the elemen- 
tal spirit of order and action locked up in the 
stuff before him. 

His brief verdict upon my friend’s invention 
settled its success in my mind. Not that I 
doubted before ; but the man’s manner was con- 
clusive. He pronounced the fiat of the practical 
world, as finally as the great engineer had done 
of the theoretical. I thrilled for old Short, when 
this Dwarf, lurking away in a by-court of Lon- 
don, accepted him as his peer. The excitement 
of this interview had for a time quite expelled 
my anxieties. For a time I had lost sight of 
the two figures that haunted me, and ever vanished 
as I pursued. They took their places again as 
I left the shop and issued from Lamely Court 
into the crowded thoroughfare at hand. 

I took a cab, and drove to my hotel, and so to 
Biddulph’s. The dinner at the Baronet’s shall 
not figure in these pages. It was my first ap- 
pearance as hero. I and my horse were historic 
characters in this new circle. I was lionized by 
Lady Biddulph, a stately personage, inheritress 
of a family rustle, — a rustle as old as the Plan- 
tagenets, and grander now by the accumulations 


A DWARF. 


829 


of ages. A lovely young lady, with dark hair, 
who blushed when I took my cue and praised 
Biddulph, she also lionized me. A thorough- 
bred American finds English life charming, es- 
pecially if he is agreeably lionnS ; a scrubby 
American considers England a region of cold 
shoulder, too effete to appreciate impertinence. 

Lady Biddulph gave me further facts of the 
history of the Clitheroes. 

“ Our dear Ellen ! ” she concluded. “ If she 
had known how much I loved her, she would 
have disregarded her natural scruples,” — and 
she glanced at her son, — “ and let me befriend 
and protect her. It goes to my heart to see Mr. 
Brent so worn and sad. He, too, has become 
very dear to us all. I have adopted him as my 
son as long as he pleases, and try to give him a 
mother’s sympathy.” 

Brent walked back with me to Smorley’s. 

“ How different we are ! ” he said, as we 
parted. “ I am all impulse; you are all steadi- 
ness.” 

“ Suffering might throw me off my balance. 
Remember that I have had trial and experience, 
but no torture.” 

“ Torture, that is the word ; and it has un- 
manned me like a wearing disease. Your com- 
ing makes a man of me again.” 

“ Give me a day or two for Short’s Cutoff and 


830 


JOHN BRENT 


the mechanical nineteenth century, and we will 
take our knight-errantry upon us again. We 
are dismounted cavaliers now, to be sure, — no 
Pumps or Fulano to help us, — but we shall find, 
I will not doubt, some other trusty aid against 
the demon forces.” 

Brent bade me good night with a revival of his 
old self. We were to meet again to-morrow. 

I sat down to gladden Short with the story of 
my success to-day, and wrote hard and fast to 
catch to-morrow’s steamer. 

The dwarf, I knew, would be a man after 
Short’s own heart, — these men of iron and steel 
are full of magnetism for each other. I gave 
Short a minute description of Padiham’s shop. 

As I described, I found that my observation 
had been much keener than I supposed. Every 
object in the shop came back to me distinctly. I 
saw the Rembrandt interior, barred with warm 
sunbeams ; the grim master standing there over 
his vice ; the glinting steel ; the polished brass ; 
the intelligent tools, ready to spring up and do 
their duty in the craftsman’s hands; that little 
pretty play tiling of a steam-engine, at rest, but 
with its pocket-piece of an oscillating cylinder 
hanging alert, so that it could swing off merrily 
at a moment’s notice, and its piston with a firm 
grip on the crank, equally eager to skip up and 
down in the cylinder on its elastic cushion of 
•team. 


A DWARF. 


331 


All the objects in Padiham’s shop, one after 
another, caught my look, as I reviewed the whole 
in memory. Suddenly I found myself gazing 
intently at my image of those two water-color 
drawings in neat gilt frames, hanging in a dusky 
corner by the chimney, — those two drawings 
which had revived in my mind the sentiment of 
the bright, healthy roses in the upper windows. 

Suddenly these drawings recurred to me. They 
stared at me like an old friend neglected. They 
insisted upon my recognition. There was a per 
sonality in them which gazed at me with a shy 
and sad reproach, that I had given them only a 
careless glance, and so passed them by. 

The drawings stared at me and I at them. 

An ancient, many-gabled brick manor-house, 
on a fair lawn dotted with stately oaks, — that 
was the first. 

Had I not already seen a drawing, the fellow 
of this ? Yes. In Biddulph’s hands at Fort 
Laramie. The same gables, the same sweet slope 
of lawn, the same broad oaks, and one the mon- 
arch of them all, — perhaps the very one Words- 
worth had rounded into a sonnet. 

And the companion drawing that I hardly 
deciphered in the dimness, — that group of figure* 
and a horse bending over them ? 

How blind I was ! 

Fulano ! 


882 


JOHN BRENT. 


Fulano surely. He and no other. 

And that group ? 

Ourselves at the Luggernel Springs. Brent 
lying wounded, while I gave him water, and a 
lady bound up his wounds. 

Can this be so ? Am I not the victim of a 
fancy ? Is this indeed my noble horse ? Is 
he again coming forward to bear us along the 
trail of our lost friend. 

I stared again at my mental image of the two 
drawings. I recalled again every word of my in- 
terview with Padiham. 

The more I looked, the more confident I be- 
came. Short’s Cut-off had held such entire pos- 
session of me in the afternoon, that I could only 
observe with eyes, not with volition, could not 
value the treasure I was grasping ignorantly. 
But I had grasped it. This is Fulano ! Except 
for him, I might doubt. Except for his presence, 
the other drawing of an old brick manor-house 
would be a commonplace circumstance. 

“ Now let me see,” I thought, pushing aside 
my letter to Short for a moment, “ what are my 
facts ? 

u Mr. Clitheroe and his daughter have disap* 
peared, and are probably in London. 

“ I have found — God be thanked ! — a clew, 
perhaps a clew. Work by the lady’s hand. 

u And where ? In Padiham’s shop. 


A DWARF. 


338 


“Padiham is a Lancashire man. So is Mr. 
Clitheroe. 

“ Padiham has a horror of Mormons. Why 
was I so hurried as not to pursue the conversa- 
tion, and discover what special cause he had for 
his disgust ? 

“ Padiham, in a secluded part of London, 
keeps a hospital for the poor and the sick. 

“ There are bright roses in the upper windows. 
No masculine fingers know how to lure blossoms 
into being so tenderly. 

“ Bright roses in the rooms above ; able draw- 
ings giving refinement to the rusty shop below. 

“ Can it be that they are there, under the very 
roof of that grim good Samaritan ? 

“ In the three millions have I come upon my 
two units ? 

“ Going straight forward and minding my own 
business, have I effected in one day what Brent 
has failed in utterly after a search of months ? 

“ But let me not neglect the counter facts ? 

“ I did not recognize these pictures when I saw 
them. Perhaps what I find in them now is fan- 
cy. My own vivid remembrance of the scene ai. 
Luggernel may be doing artist-work, and dignify- 
ing some commonplace illustration of an old bal- 
lad. Ours was not the first such group since 
men were made and horses made for them. Fu 
lano has had no lack of forefathers in heroism. 


S34 


JOHN BRENT. 


“ And the manor-house ? There are, perhaps, 
in Padiham’s own county, a hundred such an- 
cient many-gabled brick halls, a hundred lawns 
fair as the one that falls away gently from Mr. 
Clitheroe’s ancestral mansion, scores of oaks as 
stately as the one that was lucky enough to 
shadow Wordsworth, and so cool his head for 
a sonnet in grateful recompense. 

“ Padiliam may have a daughter who draws 
horses and houses to delude me, — imaginative 
fellow that I am becoming ! 

“ Or, what do I know ? Suppose these fugi- 
tives have taken refuge with Padiham, — it may 
be to escape pursuit. Poor Mr. Clitheroe ! Who 
knows what poverty may have permitted him to 
do ? Better to hide in Lamely Court than to be 
stared at in a prison ! 

“ My facts are slender basis for conclusion,” — 
so I avowed to myself on this review. 

“ But I would rather have a hope than no 
hope. The filmiest clew is kinder than no clew. 

“ I will finish my letter to old Short, dear boy, 
inventor of a well-omened Cut-off ; I will sleep 
like a top, with no mysterious disappearances to 
disturb me ; I will be with the Dwarf by seven. 
If that is Fulano in the drawing, he shall carry 
double again. He shall conduct the Lover and 
Friend to the Lady.” 


CHAPTER XXXII. 


PADIHAM’S SHOP. 

How jubilant I felt the next morning as 1 
made my way toward Lamely Court ! The 
Thames really seemed to me a pure and lucent 
current. I began to fancy that there might be 
a stray whiff of ozone in the breezes of Albion. 

What a cheerful clock it was, in some steeple 
near at hand, that struck seven as I set foot 
upon Padiham’s steps! What a blessing to a 
neighborhood to have a clock so utterly incredu- 
lous of dolefulness, — a clock that said All ’s well 
to the past hour, and prophesied All ’s well to the 
coming ! 

“ Now,” I thought, “ I must have my wits 
about me. My business is with Padiham the 
mechanic, not with Padiham the good Samari- 
tan. My time and mind belong to Short’s 
Cut-off. I must not dash off into impertinent 
queries about people the dwarf may know noth- 
ing of, may wish to tell nothing of. Keep cool, 
Richard Wade ! mind your own business, and 
then you can mind other people’s. Be ready to 


836 


JOHN BRENT. 


be disappointed ! Destiny is not so easy to propi- 
tiate as you seemed to believe last night. 

As the clock dallied on its last stroke of seven* 
I entered Padiham’ s shop. 

My first glance — eyes never looked more 
earnestly — was toward the two drawings. 

There they were, — fact not fancy. 

I could still hold to the joy of a hope. 

They were too far away in this dusky corner 
for absolute recognition ; but there were the 
familiar gables of the old hall ; and there was 
my horse, yes, himself, bending over that very 
group of Luggernel Springs. I must cling to 
my confidence ; I would not doubt. If I doubted, 
I should become a stupid bungler over the mod- 
els, and probably disgust Padiham by my awk 
wardness. 

“ Good morning, Mr. Padiham.” 

“ Good morning,” said he, in that hearty voice 
which resolutely declined being surly. 

He was standing, filing away, just where I had 
left him yesterday. Put him on a pair of prop- 
erly elongated legs, shake the reefs out of his 
ribs, in short, let Procrustes have half an hour 
at him, and a very distinguished-looking man 
would be George Padiham. In fact, as he was, 
his remarkable head raised him above pity. Many 
of us would consent to be dwarfed, to be half 
man below the Adam’s apple, if above it we 


PADIHAM’S SHOP. 


337 


could wear the head of a Jupiter Tonans, such a 
majestic head as this stunted man, the chief 
artisan of all England. 

Padiham was as gruff as yesterday, but his 
gruffness gave him flavor. Better a boor than 
a flunkey. There is excitement in talking with 
a man who respects you exactly in proportion 
to your power, and ignores you if you are a 
muff. 

We went at our work without delay. For 
nearly two hours I put myself and kept myself 
at Short’s Cut-off. Padiham’s skill and readiness 
astonished me. Great artists are labor-saving 
machines to themselves ; they leap to a conclu- 
sion in a moment, where a potterer would be 
becalmed for a tide. 

By and by, I found that I could be of no fur- 
ther use to this master craftsman. 

“ You understand this job better than I do,” 
said I. 

“ I understand it,” said he. 

“ I ’ll take a short spell,” said I, “ and look 
about the shop a little.” 

“ Don’t be setting my tools by the ears.” 

“No; I want to see those pictures by the 
chimney.” 

He said nothing. His lathe buzzed. His chisel 
tortured bars of metal until they shrieked. The 
fragrance of fresh-cut steel filled the shop. 


838 


JOHN BRENT. 


I sprang to the dusky comer. My heart choked 
me. I wanted to shout so that John Brent, mile* 
away across the wilderness of the great city, 
could hear and come with one step. 

For here was what I hoped. 

Here we were, our very selves, in this bold, 
masterly drawing. John Brent himself, the 
wounded knight ; myself, bringing him water 
from the fountain ; our dear Ellen, kneeling 
beside ; and bending over us, Don Fulano, the 
chiefest hero of that terrible ride through the 
canon. 

And more, if I needed proof. For here, in 
among the water-plants by the spring, there in 
the grass under Wordsworth’s oak, lurked the 
initials, E. C. 

Found ! Ah, not yet. A clew ; but perhaps 
a clew that would break in my hands, as I 
traced it. 

I lost no time. 

“ These are pretty pictures,” said I, crushing 
myself into self-possession. 

“ What has that got to do with this job ? ” 

“ You think I ’m a pretty good mechanic ? ” 

“ Middling. You handle tools well enough for 
a gentleman.” 

“ Well, if I were not a bit of an artist, I should 
not even be a middling mechanic. I like to see 
fine art, such as these drawings, hung up before 


PADIHAM’S SHOP. 


889 


% working man. I can understand hDW appro* 
dating such things has helped you to become the 
first mechanic in England.” 

“ Who says I am that ? ” 

“ So the first engineer in England told me 
when he sent me here.” 

“ 0, he sent you ! I supposed you did not 
find your own way.” 

“There has been no chance in my coming 
here,” said I, and my heart thanked God. 

“ You ’re right about those drawings, young 
man,” Padiham said, and his voice seemed to 
find a sweeter tone even than before. “They 
do me good, and put a finer edge on my work. 
They ’re good work, and by a good hand.” 

“ Whose ? ” 

The dwarf turned about and surveyed me 
strictly. Then he started his lathe again, tore 
off a narrow ringlet of steel from a bit he was 
shaping, and flung another stream of steely per- 
fume into the air. 

“ Whose hand ? ” I asked again. 

“Do you ask because you want to know, oi 
only to make idle talk?” 

“ I want to know.” 

“What for?” 

“I think the drawings are good. I should 
like a pair by the same hand. Can you direct 
me to the artist?” 


840 


JOHN BRENT. 


“ No.” 

“ Why not ? ” 

“ The artist don’t like strangers. I will ordei 
you what you want.” 

“ That will not do. I prefer to talk over the 
subjects with the painter.” 

The dwarf turned again and gave me a prob 
ing look, and again took up his chisel and cut 
shining curls without reply. 

I grew impatient of this parley. He knew 
something, and it must out. 

“ Look at me, George Padiham ! ” I said. 
“ Stop your lathe a minute, and charge me for 
the time a hundred times over! I know the 
hand that painted these pictures. My portrait 
and my friend’s, and my horse’s portrait, are 
here on your wall. Only one person in the 
world can have painted them, Ellen Clitheroe. 
Here are her initials in the corner. You know 
where she is. I wish to see her. I must see 
her, at once, now ! ” 

“ Keep cool, young man ! This is my shop. 
I ’m master here. I ’ve put bigger men than 
you out of this door before. What ’s all this 
must and shall about ? What ’s your name ? ” 

“Richard Wade.” 

Padiham left his lathe, came toward me, sur- 
veyed me earnestly again, and then took down 
the drawing wherein I appeared. He compared 


PADIHAM’S SHOP. 


841 


the man standing before him with his counter- 
feit presentment. There could be no mistaking 
me. I had the honor to resemble myself, as the 
artist had remembered me. 

“ You ’re the man,” said Padiham. “ I Vo. 
heard of you. I wasn’t looking sharp not to 
have known you when you first came in and 
stood there by the door waiting for me to speak 
first. Richard Wade, give me your hand! I 
suppose if I am the best mechanic in England, 
called so on good authority, you wont min d 
striking palms with me.” 

I shook him by the hand pretty vigorously. 

“ You’ve got a middling strong grip of your 
fist for one of the overgrown sort,” said he. 
“Where ’s your friend, John Brent?” 

“Here in London, searching for Miss Cli- 
theroe ! ” 

“ Where ’s your horse ? — the Black ? ” 

“ Dead ! Shot and drowned in the Missouri, 
helping off a fugitive slave.” 

“That’s brave. Well, Richard Wade, my 
dear child Ellen Clitheroe and her father are 
here in my house. They are safe here, after all 
their troubles, up in that room where perhaps 
you marked the roses in the window. She has 
been sick at heart to have heard nothing from 
you since she came to England. It will be the 
one thing she lacks to see you, and if you will 


M2 


JOHN BRENT. 


let me say a few words to you first, I’ll take 
you to them.” 

“ Go on. If you have protected my friends, 
you are my friend, and I want to hear what you 
have to my” 


CHAPTER XXXIII 


"OAST THY BREAD UPON THE WATERS.” 

w I am short, and I shall try to make a long 
story short,” said Padiham. “ I wish to tell you, 
in as few words as I may, why Mr. Clitheroe and 
his daughter are in my house. 

“ Look at me, a stunted man ! Life in a coal- 
mine stunted me. I suppose I was born under- 
ground. I know that I never remember when I 
was not at work, either harnessed like a dog, and 
dragging coals through a shop where I could not 
stand upright, or, when I grew stronger, — bigger 
I was not to grow, — down in the darkest holes, 
beating out with a pickaxe stuff to make other 
men’s houses warm and cheery. If I had had 
air and sun and light and hope, I might have 
been a shapely man. 

“ It was in Lancashire, the coal-mine where 
I had been shut up, boy and man, some twenty 
years, as I reckon. There came one day a 
weakly man, who had n’t been used to work 
hard, into the shaft, and they put him at drawing 
wt the coals I dug, Hugh was the namo he 


844 


JOHN BRENT. 


gave, and he had n’t been long enough under* 
ground to get his face black, before we ’d baptized 
him Gentleman Hugh. I had never seen a gen- 
tleman to know him, but I had a feeling of what 
one ought to be, and so had my mates in the pit 
Gentleman Hugh seemed to us to suit the nick- 
name we gave him. We ’re roughs down in the 
coal-pits, and some of us are brutes enough ; but 
Gentleman Hugh managed to get us all on his 
side, and there was n’t a man of us that would n’t 
give him a lift. 

“ Gentleman Hugh took a fancy to me, and so 
did I to him. Nature had misused me, and life 
had misused him. We had something to pity 
each other for. But I had the advantage in the 
dark damp hole where we worked. I had lost 
nothing ; I knew of nothing better ; I was healthy 
and strong, if I was stunted ; I could help Gen- 
tleman Hugh, and save him wearing himself out. 
And so I did. He was the first person or crea- 
ture I had ever cared for. 

“ I did what I could for him in lightening his 
work ; but he gave me back a hundred times 
what I could give. I was hands without head, 
or without any head that could make my hands 
of use. He had head enough, and things in his 
head, but his hands were never meant for tools to 
get a living. Gentleman Hugh waked up my 
brains. I knew how to pick and dig, and some* 


OAST THY BREAD UPON THE WATERS.’* 345 


times wondered if that was all I should ever be 
at. But air and daylight seemed as if they did 
not belong to me. I was a drudge, and never 
thought of anything but drudging, until Gentle- 
man Hugh came down into my shaft and began 
to tell me what there was outside of coal-mines. 

“ He told me about himself ; that he was Hugh 
Clitheroe, a gentleman, and how he had been 
mined by factories and coal speculations. It 
was his losing his fortune in a coal-mine that set 
him on coming into ours to make his bread, and 
poor bread too, for a gentleman. He said he 
was sick of daylight. It was better to be a 
drudge, so he said, down in the blackest and 
wettest hole of any coal-pit in Lancashire, than 
to beg bread of men that pretended to be his 
friends when he was rich, and sneered at him for 
his folly in losing his wealth. I found out that 
there were wrongs and brutality above ground as 
well as under it 

“By and by, when Gentleman Hugh and I had 
got to be friends, he took me one holiday and 
showed me his daughter. She was a sweet little 
lass. He had left her with the rough women, the 
miners’ wives. But she had her own way with 
them, just as he had had with us. They called 
her little Lady Ellen, and would have cut up their 
own brats, if they had n’t been too tough, if she 
had wanted such diet. Little Ellen, sweet lass 1 

15 * 


846 


JOHN BRENT. 


was not afraid of me, Dwarf George and Rnut 
George as they called me. She did not run 
away and cry, or point and laugh at me as the 
other children did. She was picking daisies on 
the edge of an old coal-pit when we first saw 
her, — a little curly-haired lass of five years old. 
She was crowned with daisies, and she did n’t 
seem to me to belong to the same class of beings 
as the grimy things I had been among all my 
days. She gave me a daisy, and asked me if I 
knew who made it. And when I said I did n’t 
know, unless it came of itself, she named God to 
me. Nobody had named God to me before ex- 
cept in oaths. 

“ Do I tire you, sir,” said Padiham, “ with this 
talk about myself ? ” 

“ Certainly not ; you interest me greatly.” 

“The old gentleman will hardly be ready to 
see you yet. It is almost nine, and at the stroke 
of nine he has his breakfast. I always go up 
then to give him good morning. You can go 
with me.” 

“ Meantime, tell me how you found them 
again.” 

“ I found them by a drawing of hers. But I 
will go on straightforward with my story. 

“ I could n’t stay a dolt, though I had to 
drudge for many a day after I first saw little 
Ellen, and she gave me the daisy and named God 


OAST THY BREAD UPON THE WATERS.*’ 347 


to me. Whenever I could get away, and that 
was only once a quarter or a half-year, I wei. t up 
to see her. She made a friend of me, and told 
me to take care of her father. He was very 
much down, quite broken and helpless, with just 
enough strength to do half his appointed work. 
So I helped him with the rest. 

“ After a long time the owners found out that 
he had education, and they took him into the 
office. All the men were sorry to lose Gentle- 
man Hugh, and when he went, I lost heart, and 
took to drinking up my miserable earnings with 
the rest. There I was, a drudge in the dark, and 
getting to be a drunkard, when Gentleman Hugh 
came to me and told me how some one had left 
him a legacy, and I must get out of the pit and 
share with him. He said little Ellen would not 
be happy unless she had me. 

“ So he took me up into the air and sun, and 
put me to school. But I could never learn much 
out of books. Put tools in my hands and I can 
make things , and that is what my business is in 
the world. You see those arms, well made as 
your own. You see those hands, strong as a 
vice, and those fingers, fine as a woman’s. They 
are tools, and able to handle tools. The rest of 
my body is stunted ; my brain is stunted. I ’m 
no fool ; but I ’m not the man I ought to be. 
Every day I feel that I cannot put my thoughts 
into the highest form.” 


US 


JOHN BRENT. 


u Every man of any power feels that,” I said, 
u by whatever machinery his power finds expres* 
sion.” 

u Perhaps so. Well, when Mr. Clitheroe had 
once given me a start in the open air, and I had 
got tools in my hands, pretty soon they began to 
talk of me as one of the masters in Lancashire, 
There ’s a great call in England for thorough 
workmen. I came up to London. I fell in with 
the gentleman who sent you here, and I got on 
well. There ’s as much good work goes out of 
this little shop as out of some big establishments 
with great names over the door. People try to 
get me to start a great shop, and make a great 
fortune, and have George Padiham talked about. 
But I ’m Dwarf George, born in a coal-mine and 
stunted in a coal-mine ; and Lamely Court, with 
my little shop in the basement, suits me best. 

“ I never forgot how I owed all my good luck 
to Gentleman Hugh and my dear little Ellen. If 
it had not been for them, I should have died 
underground of hard work, before thirty, as most 
of my mates did. Their help of me gave me a 
kindly feeling toward broken-down gentlefolks. 
I owed the class my luck, and when I got on and 
had money to spend, having no one of my own 
to spend it for, I looked up people as badly off 
as Gentleman Hugh was when I first knew him, 
and helped them. They are a hard class to help 


"CAST THY BREAD UPON THE WATERS.” 84f 

— proud as Lucifer sometimes, with their own 
kind. I took this house here, out of the way as 
much as any spot in London. Whenever I knew 
of a gentleman, or a gentlewoman, given out, or 
worn out, so that they could n’t take care of 
themselves, I brought them in here. If they 
were only given out, I put stuff into them again, 
cheered them up, and found some work for them 
to do. Gentlefolks are not such fools, if they 
only had education. If I found one that was 
worn out beyond all patching, I packed him into 
a snug corner up-stairs, and let him lie there. 
They like it better than public hospitals and 
retreats. 

“ All the while I was getting on and getting 
rich in a small way, with some small shares in 
, patents I own. But I kept my eye on Gentle- 
man Hugh. I knew what would come to him, 
and I never took in ten shillings that I did not 
put away one for him and his daughter. 

“ I knew of his going to America with the Mor- 
mons, — damn ’em ! I went down to Clitheroe to 
persuade him to give up the plan. He would 
not. He quarrelled with me, — our first hard 
words. He forbade his daughter to write to me. 

“ I knew he would come back some time or 
other, stripped and needy. I watched the pack 
et’s lists of passengers. He did not come under 
his own name ; but I saw last winter an old Lan 


850 


JOHN BRENT. 


cashire name on a list of arrivals, — the namo of 
that worn-out shaft where Ellen had picked th€ 
daisy for me. It was a favorite spot of his. 
Part of his money had gone down it, and he used 
to sit and stare into it as if the money was going 
to bubble up again. I traced them by that to 
London. Here for a time I lost them. 

“ He got very low in London, — poor old man ! ” 
continued Padiham. 

“ Nothing dishonest, I hope,” said I. 

“ No, no. Only gambling, with a crazy hope of 
getting even with the world again. In this way 
he spent all that he had left, and Ellen’s hard 
earnings beside. It made him wild for her to re- 
fuse him ; so she was forced to give him all that 
she could spare, — all except just enough to pay 
for a poor place to live in and poorer fare. She 
never knew where he spent the long nights ; she 
only saw him creep back to his garret in the early 
morning destitute and half alive. Richard Wade, 
you may read books, and hear tales, and go 
through the world looking for women that help 
and hope, and never give up helping and hoping; 
but you ’ll never find another like her, — no, not 
like my dear lass, — as grand a beauty, too, as 
any at the Queen’s court.” 

“ You are right, Padiham. None like her.” 

“But I promised you to talk as short as 1 
could. I must tell you how I found them. Th« 


CAST THY BREAD UPON THE WATERS.” 851 


poor gentle-folks that I take care of generally 
know something of ornamental work that they 
learnt to do, for play, when they were better off. 
I set them at doing what they can do best, and 
sell it for them. There is always some one 
among my family can draw. What of their 
drawings I can’t dispose of at the print-shops I 
buy myself, and scatter ’em round among me- 
chanics to light up their benches. You were 
right when you said a man cannot be a good 
artisan unless he has a bit of the artist in him. 

“It was by going to a print-shop with draw- 
ings to sell that I found my dear lass. She had 
painted me, and sold the picture to the dealer 
for bread. I would n’t have noticed the picture 
except for the dwarf in it, and now I would n’t 
be a finished man for the world. Yes, there I 
was, Dwarf George, picking daisies on the edge 
of a coal-pit ; there I was, just as I used to look, 
with the coal-dust ground into me, trying to 
make friends with the fresh innocent daisies in 
the sunshine. 

“ By that picture I found them just in time. 
When I got to their garret, Ellen was lying sick, 
ill in body, and tired and sorrowed out. Their 
money was all gone, for Gentleman Hugh had 
been robbed of his last the night before. I 
brought my dear child and her father her e. What 
I had was theirs. 


862 


JOHN BRENT. 


“ As soon as her father was safe with me, hia 
old friend, she got well. As soon as his daughter 
was out of the way of harm and want, and the 
old gentleman had nothing to be crazy about and 
nothing to run away from, he stopped dead. He 
fell mto a palsy. 

“ There he is now up-stairs. Ellen chose the 
upper room, where they could look over the 
house-tops and of clear days see the Surrey Hills. 
I ’ve got some skill in my fingers for mending 
broken men, but Hugh Clitheroe can’t be mend- 
ed. It ’s as well for him that he can’t. He ’s 
been off track too long ever to run steady in this 
world. But he has come to himself, and sees 
things clearer at last. He lies there contented 
and patient, waiting for his end. He sees his 
daughter, who has gone with him though thick 
and thin, by his side, and knows she will love 
him closer every day. And he knows that his 
old mate, Dwarf George, is down here in the 
basement, strong enough to keep all up and all 
together.” 

“Let me be the one, Mr. Padiham;” said I, 
“to ask the honor of shaking hands with you. 
I tliink better of the world for your sake.” 

“ Young man,” said he, with his clear, frank 
voio3, “a noble woman like my Ellen betters 
every true man. There strikes nine. A pleas- 
ant church-clock that ! I gave it to ’em. Now 


* CAST THY BBEAD UPON THE WATERS.” 358 

you ’re well tired of my talk, I dare say. Come, 
Ellen will have all she has missed when she sees 
you and your friend. Many times she has told 
me of that ride of yours. Many times she has 
cried, as a woman only cries for one loss, when 
she told me how day after day she waited to hear 
from you, and had never heard.” 

“ She wrote ? ” 

“ Repeatedly.” 

“We never heard.” 

“Her father took her letters from her to 
Dost.” 

“ And kept them or destroyed them for some 
3r & zj suspicion.” 

“ dreaded you might have been chased 
and cut off by the Mormons. She would not 
believe that you had forgotten her.” 

“ Forgotten ! Come, I ’ll follow you.” 


CHAPTER XXXIV. 


THE LAST OF A LOVE-CHASE. 

w How easy it seems for noble souls to be no- 
ble ! ” thought I, as I followed Padiham up the 
neat staircase of his House of Charity. “ What 
a beautiful vengeance it is of this man upon 
nature for blighting him ! A meaner being 
would be soured, and turn cynic, and perhaps 
chuckle that others were equalized with him by 
suffering. He simply, and as if it were a matter 
of course, gives himself to baffling sorrow and 
blight. It is Godlike.” And I looked with 
renewed admiration at the strange figure climb- 
ing the stairs before me. 

He was all head and shoulders, and his mo- 
tions were like a clumsy child’s. I went slowly 
after him. Was it true that this long love-chase 
over land and sea was at its ending? Joy is 
always a giant surprise, — success a disappoint- 
ment among the appointed failures. Was this 
grim dwarf to be a conjurer of happiness ? 

Padiham tapped at a door in the upper stcry. 

A voice said, “ Come in.” 


THE LAST OF A LOVE-CHASE. 355 

Her voice ! That sweet, sad voice ! That un- 
murmuring, unrebellious voice ! That voice of 
gentle defiance, speaking a soul impregnable ! 
How full of calm hopefulness ! while yet I could 
detect in it the power of bursting into all the hor- 
ror of that dread scream that had come through 
the stillness to our camp at Fort Bridger. 

The dwarf opened the door quietly. 

The sunshine of that fresh June morning lay 
bright upon the roses in the window. My glance 
perceived the old blue-gray infantry surtout hang- 
ing in a corner. Mr. Clitheroe was sitting up 
in bed, lifting a tea-cup with his left hand. His 
long white beard drifted over the cool bedclothes. 
An appetizing breakfast, neatly served, was upon 
a table beside him. And there in this safe 
haven, hovering about him tenderly as ever in 
the days of his errant voyaging in the hapless 
time gone by, was his ministering angel, that 
dear daughter, the sister of my choice. 

She turned as we entered. 

The old steady, faithful look in the gray eyes. 
The same pale, saddened beauty. The unblench- 
ing gaze of patient waiting. 

She looked at me vaguely, while life paused 
one pulse. Then, as I stepped forward, the elo- 
quent blood gushed into her face, — for she knew 
that the friend could not long outrun the lover, 
SV* sprang into my arms. Forgive me, John 


S56 


JOHN BRENT. 


Brent, if I did put my lips close to Iwr turning 
cheek. It was only to whisper, “ He L in Lon- 
don, searching for you. He has never rested 
one moment since you were lost to us. In an 
hour he will be here.” 

“ Dear father,” she said, drawing herself away, 
and smiling all aglow, while tears proclaimed 
a joy too deep for any surface smile to speak, 
“ this is our dear friend, my preserver, Mr. 
Wade.” 

Mr. Clitheroe studied me with a bewildered 
look, as I have seen an old hulk of a mariner 
peer anxiously into a driving sea-fog from the 
shore, while he talked of shipmates shaken from 
the yard, or of brave ships that sunk in un- 
known seas. Then the mist slowly cleared away 
from the old gentleman’s dim eyes, and he saw 
me in the scenery of my acting with him. 

“ Ah yes ! ” he said, in a mild, dreamy voice, 
u I see it all. Sizzum’s train, Fort Bridger, the 
Ball, the man with a bloody blanket on his head, 
you and your friend galloping off over the prai 
rie, — I see it all.” 

He paused, and seemed to review all that wild 
error of his into the wilderness. 

“ Yes, I see it all,” he continued. “ My dear 
Mr. Wade, 1 remember you with unspeakable 
gratitude. You and your friend saved me this 
dearest daughter. I have suffered wearing dis* 


THE LAST OF A LOVE-CHASE. 


857 


tress since then, and you must pardon me for 
forgetting you one instant. Excuse my left 
hand! Dwarf George is a capital machinist, 
but he says he cannot put new springs into my 
right. That is nothing, my dear Mr. Wade, 
that is nothing. God has given me peace of 
mind at last, my dear daughter has forgiven 
me all my old follies, and my stanch old mate 
will never let me want a roof over my head, or 
a crust of his bread and a sup of his can.” 

There is a Hansom cab-horse, now or late of 
London, who must remember me with asperity. 

But then there is a cabman who is my friend 
for life, if a giant fare can win a cabman’* 
heart. 

By the side of the remembrance of my gal- 
lop down Luggernel Alley, I have a picture in 
my mind of myself, in a cab, cutting furiously 
through the caSons of London in chase of r 
lover. The wolves and cayotes of the by-streets — 
there are no antelopes in London — did not at 
tempt to follow our headlong speed. We rattled 
across Westminster Bridge, up Whitehall, and 
so into May Fair to Lady Biddulph’s door. 

The footman — why did he grin when he saw 
me ? — recognized me as the family friend of yes* 
terday, and ushered me without ceremony into 
the breakfast-room, where the family were all 
assembled. 


858 


JOHN BBENT. 


Why did the footman grin? I perceived, as 
I entered. A mirror fronted me. My face was 
like a Sioux’s in his war-paint. There had been 
flies in Padiham’s shop, and I had brushed them 
away from my face, alas ! with hands blackened 
over the lathe. 

All looked up amazed at this truculent in- 
truder. It was, — 

“ Enter Orlando , with his sword drawn," 

“ Forbear, and eat no more ! ” 

An injunction not necessary for poor Brent, 
who sat dreary and listless. 

The rest forbore at my apparition. Egg-spoon 
paused at egg’s mouth. Sugar sank to the floor 
of coffee-cup. Toast silenced its crackle. 

Brent recognized me in the grimy pirate bo- 
fore him. 

He sprang to his feet. “ You have found 
her ! ” cried he. 

“ Yes.” 

He looked at me eagerly. 

“ Well and happy,” I said ; “ in a safe haven 
with a faithful friend. Lady Biddulph will par- 
don mo, bringing such tidings, for rushing in 
in my war-paint, American fashion.” 

“ You are always welcome, Mr. Wade, in what 
costume you please,” said she. “ Doubly so 
with this happy news. My dear Ellen ! I must 
see her at once, — as soon as closer friends have 


THE LAST OF A LOVE-CHASE. 858 

had their hour. But, Mr. Brent, you are not 
going without your breakfast ! ” 

Everybody smiled. 

“ Come ! Come ! ” cried Brent. 

“ Come ! ” and as we hurried away, there was 
again the same light in his eye, — the same life 
and ardor in his whole being, as when, in that 
wild Love-Chase on the Plains, we galloped sida 
of side. 


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